SEATTLE -- Jack Kochanowicz spent six innings on a tightrope of his offense’s making in Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to the Mariners.
It’s one the Angels have been familiar with of late, in a stretch of 16 straight games with five runs or fewer scored -- Los Angeles’ longest such streak since May 21-June 8 of last year, and just their sixth such streak since 2000.
“We can’t expect to play perfect baseball,” manager Ron Washington said before the game. “When you’re not scoring and you’re not doing all the things it takes to play good baseball, all of a sudden you’re out there trying to play perfect baseball, and you can’t do that. Now our pitchers are trying to be perfect with their pitches and all that type of stuff.”
That turned out to be a bit of birthday prophecy for the Angels’ skipper, who turned 73 on Tuesday.
Kochanowicz posted his second consecutive quality start -- his third this season -- going six innings, striking out a season-high six and allowing four hits.
“Other than that second inning, I thought he handled himself extremely well,” Washington said.
But when Kochanowicz threw his final pitch, he walked off the field trailing 3-0, in his second straight start without receiving a run of support. That, in turn, placed the focus of his outing on that second inning, with every little nit magnified.
It began with Kochanowicz issuing a one-out walk to Myles Mastrobuoni -- after a 1-1 sinker that looked like it caught a good deal of the corner was called a ball, putting the righty behind in the count.
Leo Rivas, Seattle’s No. 9 hitter, followed with a blooper that hung in the air for 4.7 seconds, but fell into no-man’s land, right on the foul line, with Taylor Ward starting out deep in left field.
Two batters later, Jorge Polanco launched a 3-2 sinker into the right-field bleachers -- after battling back from 0-2 to a full count -- and the Mariners had all the scoring they’d get against the Angels’ starter.
“I think I was just trusting myself that I would get the ball down and throw it where I needed to,” Kochanowicz said. “Looking back on it, probably not the right pitch to throw back to back; he put a pretty good swing on the foul ball before that.”
Kochanowicz retired the next nine Mariners he faced, and 12 of the final 14 in his night, despite a decrease in velocity of between 0.8 and 2.5 mph from his season average on four of his five pitches.
“After he gave up the three runs, he came in, he was upset,” Washington said. “Had to settle him down and let him know ‘That’s done, now it’s going to be determined what you do from this point on.’ And he went out there and gave us four [more] innings. It’s in him.”
If there had been runs behind him, the focus on Kochanowicz’s start might have been the first inning instead, when he gave up a first-pitch single to Julio Rodríguez before walking Polanco and Cal Raleigh on a combined 10 pitches to load the bases with no outs.
“I wouldn’t say it was a flip of the switch, just no panic,” he said. “I knew if I throw the ball where I need to, I’ll get out of this, and it worked out.”
That’s exactly how it went. One pitch got Randy Arozarena to hit a hard ground ball to shortstop Zach Neto, who went home to cut down the lead runner. The next pitch got Rowdy Tellez to pop out in foul territory, and two pitches later, Kochanowicz had the Angels back in the dugout -- and Seattle still scoreless.
“If I go out there and feel like I can throw the ball where I want to, I can get through the game pretty quickly,” the right-hander said. “Just going to try to keep doing that.”
But all Kochanowicz’s outing could do was keep the Angels within arm's length. Los Angeles -- which came into the day last in the league in walks drawn -- forced a career-high five out of Bryce Miller, but hit into double plays in two of the first three frames and couldn’t turn any of the traffic into runs.
Things started to flip in the seventh when Logan O’Hoppe went the other way for a solo home run. The next inning, Washington’s reworked lineup -- moving Neto to the leadoff spot and plugging Nolan Schanuel in behind him -- paid dividends, with the two hitting back-to-back doubles and Jorge Soler adding an RBI two-bagger of his own, but that would by all they could manage.
“You’ve got to look at the positive side,” Washington said. “We had better at-bats.”