The Angels continue to pair great pitching performances with poor offensive production.
The latest case was the Angels’ 1-0 loss against the Pirates on Friday night, as right-hander Ryan Johnson’s six innings of one-run ball were wasted.
Johnson struck out six and allowed only four hits over his six innings, continuing his impressive hot streak. After starting the season with a 7.63 ERA, he’s pitched to a 1.67 ERA over his last six starts since the calendar flipped to August.
The cutter and sweeper combination proved to be deadly to the Pirates.
Johnson used his cutter and sweeper to get swings and misses, chases out of the strike zone and he was able to steal strike one with them.
Pirates hitters swung and missed at 39% of Johnson’s cutters and 28% of his sweepers.
He landed his cutter for a first-pitch strike 10 out of 12 times, and his sweeper four out of six times. Both pitches may not have been in the strike zone all that often, but because he was able to get hitters to chase out of the zone, both pitches ended up being strikes at almost an 80% clip.
The only run Johnson allowed was back in the second inning, when Konnor Griffin scored from first base on a double down the right-field line by Jake Magnum. After that, Johnson only allowed two baserunners to reach scoring position the rest of the outing.
All of Johnson’s work was essentially wasted, though, because the Angels couldn’t find an answer for any pitcher the Pirates sent to the mound.
Whittier native right-hander Jared Jones struck out nine Angels over six shutout innings on three hits. Right-hander Wilber Dotel then shut down the Angels for two scoreless innings with a pair of strikeouts. Left-hander Mason Montgomery came in and closed it out in the ninth.
The Angels’ offense as a whole struck out 11 times and only recorded three hits. Only one baserunner reached scoring position when Vaughn Grissom got to third base with no outs in the second inning, but the Angels went popout, strikeout and strikeout to end the threat.