ANAHEIM, Calif.— It wasn’t the send-off for the fans that the Angels were hoping for on Sunday.
In their last game in front of the home crowd, the Angels put up a dud, only recording one hit in their 8-0 loss against the Twins.
The Angels struck out 11 times and never reached scoring position.
"He's just a veteran guy, knows what he's doing on the mound, keeps you off balance," Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said of Twins right-hander Dean Kremer. "I thought him and (Victor) Caratini did well together right there, keeping us off balance."
Right-hander Ryan Johnson wasn’t his sharpest either. He allowed three earned runs in 4 ⅔ innings on six strikeouts and no walks.
"I still had some three-ball counts, still fell behind guys," Johnson said. "I feel like I could have gotten a little bit sharper in that area, even though I didn't necessarily have the walks."
Although he allowed seven hits, the Twins only hit three balls hard off of Johnson out of 15 balls put in play.
The Twins tagged Johnson for four singles to score two runs in the top of the third. He allowed another pair of singles that brought in a run in the fifth.
"I thought actually RJ pitched better than the line that he had," Suzuki said. "No walks, six strikeouts, soft contact. He basically got singled to death. Credit to them, they put the bat on the ball."
Things began falling off the tracks in the sixth inning.
After retiring the first two batters of the inning, left-hander Sammy Peralta allowed a two-strike double to Emmanuel Rodriguez, who then scored on Ben Ross’ RBI single. Ross stole second on the next pitch, but the throw went into center field to allow Ross to score from second.
The Twins then put it well out of reach in the seventh inning when Alan Roden hit a three-run blast into right field to make it 8-0.
Peralta finished his outing allowing five runs, with four of them earned, in 1 ⅔ innings.
The Angels are now 60-96 and will travel to Sacramento for a two-game set against the Athletics and then wrap up the season with a four-game series in Seattle against the Mariners.