Angels show ‘fight’ but go down quietly against Braves

ANAHEIM, Calif. — There were five Angels on Tuesday night to record a hit, with Jo Adell the only one to get two, but some may argue that Jorge Soler had the most on the team. 

After a first-pitch 97 miles per hour fastball by Reynaldo López sailed by the head of Soler in the fifth inning, Soler charged the mound and squared up with López, and the two traded off real punches, which is a rare sight in baseball fights.

Once the dust settled and both Soler and López were ejected from the game, things picked up right where they left off, and the Angels’ (6-6) bats failed to scratch runs across in a 7-2 loss to the Braves (7-5).

Soler’s first big swing of the game came in the first inning, when he took López deep for a two-run home run. That homer put Soler 14-for-23 with five home runs in his career against López. 

And it appears López wasn’t a fan of that.

In Soler’s next at-bat, he was hit up and in with a 96 miles per hour fastball. In the next one, that first-pitch fastball that zipped by Soler’s head started a staring match, which then led to words being exchanged, which then led to punches being exchanged. 

“He didn’t miss with the other hitters like that, like he missed to me, so I think it was intentional,” Soler said.

López was surprised enough at Soler charging that he didn’t even take his glove off, or even drop the baseball in his other hand, and just threw punches with what he had. 

After a series of punches thrown, Soler was tackled to the ground by three Braves players, and the brawl settled down after some shoving. 

“(Solers’) got good numbers off López and hits a homer his first at-bat, gets drilled up high in the wrist his second at-bat and then the third one throws one head high," Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “I don’t blame (Soler) one bit. He went out there and I guess his words were exchanged. Anytime you get thrown at your head, you have a family, your career, it’s dangerous. I know it’s part of the game, I know it happens, but you ask any hitter, a ball gets thrown near their head, especially after hitting a homer, it’s not good."

The Angels now lead all of baseball with 11 hit by pitches as an offense. Although this incident is isolated to just Soler and López, the Angels are also just tired of being hit. 

“It is part of the game, but there’s gonna come a time where enough’s enough," Suzuki said. “You don’t want to get hit by pitches.”

Soler’s two-run home run in the first inning were the only runs the Angels could muster while collecting six hits and striking out 14 times.

On the other side of the ball, left-hander Yusei Kikuchi struggled again with keeping a low pitch count. He tossed five innings, giving up four runs on six hits and a walk while striking out eight batters. He threw a total of 97 pitches.

“We’d like to have his pitch count down and have him go deeper in games with the stuff that he has," Suzuki said. “I know he’s working on it and he’ll do it but the pitch count ran up there high tonight, fast."

A 31-pitch second inning and a 28-pitch fourth inning were the killers for Kikuchi. 

In the second, he may have only faced five batters, but four of them went to three-ball counts that lasted longer than six pitches apiece. Kikuchi gave up a two-strike single to Matt Olson, who then scored on a two-strike double by Eli White. 

In the fourth, things unwraveled for Kikuchi. 

A leadoff walk to Olson was followed by a two-strike single by Austin Riley and a double by Mauricio Dubón. White hit a sacrifice fly and Jonah Heim singled in the third and final run of the inning before Kikuchi could stop the bleeding.

The Angels have another chance to win the series in the finale at 1:07 p.m. on Wednesday.