ANAHEIM -- Jacob deGrom felt like he was locating his pitches well when he was warming up in the bullpen before his start on Monday night against the Angels. His stuff was on point when he struck out the side in the top of the first inning. But then, the third inning happened.
After giving up a leadoff single to Luis Rengifo, deGrom threw a first-pitch slider to Kevin Newman. The goal was to throw it down and away, just under the zone, and induce a double play.
The ball spun down, but it stayed in the middle. Newman put a swing on it -- and sent it 409 feet for a two-run home run.
“Gotta bear down here,” deGrom told himself. “That’s all they get.”
But things snowballed after that. deGrom kept missing his spots, giving up hard contact. There was another run on an RBI double two innings later. An inning after that, another home run. He was pulled from the game after a bizarre flyball that landed when Adolis García seemed to lose it in the lights in right field for what was officially ruled a double.
deGrom finished his outing in Monday’s 6-4 loss at Angel Stadium with five earned runs on seven hits with a walk and eight strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings.
“A lot of misses in the middle,” he said. “These are Major League hitters, and they’ll catch up to it. Just did a poor job all around tonight.”
The starting rotation has been key to the Rangers winning nine of their previous 10 games. deGrom, a two-time Cy Young Award winner and five-time All-Star, entered Monday having allowed two runs or fewer in 17 of his outings this season. Only Paul Skenes (19) and Garrett Crochet (18) have more. He was also coming off a dominant performance against the A’s in which he struck out nine over six innings with just four baserunners allowed.
But the Angels had success in their last meeting with deGrom at the Big A on July 7, when he allowed three runs in five innings in a 6-5 loss.
Is there anything that deGrom has noticed the Angels do particularly well against him these last couple outings?
“Hit the balls that I throw down the middle,” he said. “They did a good job of eliminating chasing sliders off [the plate], but it’s easy to do when it’s a ball out of hand. I’m not locating the slider for a strike. It’s down the middle. And when I do throw it down and away, it’s never a strike.”
While deGrom’s velocity on most of his pitches hovered near his season average and he led the game in swings and misses, his spin rate was significantly down on his fastball, slider and changeup. All three pitches thrown where he gave up a run on Monday were left over the plate.
“They got every mistake,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “You give them credit there. They hit a lot of home runs. In this ballpark, the ball flies. If you get it up in the air, it’s got a good chance of going out. And that’s what happened.”
The Rangers missed an opportunity to gain ground on the AL West-leading Astros, who lost on Monday. They remain four games behind in the division. And after briefly holding the third Wild Card spot in a tie with the Mariners entering Monday, the Rangers are now half a game behind the Red Sox.
It’s still July, but the games are starting to mean a little more -- especially with the Trade Deadline looming just three days away.
Still, Bochy isn’t worried too much about a loss right now. He’s confident in the group he has and in their ability to respond.
“Look, I have a calm group out there,” he said. “They’ve been through a lot. They’re not going to dwell on this game here. They’ll put this behind them, we’ll come out and play tomorrow. We’re in July. We have a lot of baseball left.”