Angels lose 4th straight game, head home with .500 record

ARLINGTON, Texas — If you had told the Angels last month they would play .500 baseball while playing 15 of their first 18 games on the road without Zach Neto, they probably would have taken it.

But Angels manager Ron Washington wasn’t going to accept that glass-half-full perspective.

“I’m not interested in .500,” he said after a 5-3 loss to the Texas Rangers on Thursday night. “I want to be better than .500, but you know, that’s the way it went. We accept it because that is what it is. Now we’ve just got to go home and get our game back. We’ve got game and we’ve just got to go home and get it back. And I do believe we will.”

Getting Neto back, likely on Friday, will help. He’s missed the first three weeks while rehabbing from November shoulder surgery.

The loss on Thursday completed the difficult season-opening stretch. The Angels are the first team since 1957 to play at least 15 of their first 18 games on the road. A schedule switch because of hurricane damage to Tropicana Field in Tampa led to extra road games.

Finishing at 9-9 was disappointing because they were 8-4 after winning their first four series. They then went to Houston and Arlington and lost five of six against the Astros and Rangers.

They did a little of everything wrong against the Rangers, but the biggest problem was that they scored just four runs in the three games. They have scored just 14 runs in their last six games.

On Thursday night, they scored one in the first inning on a Jorge Soler RBI single, and two in the fifth on a Luis Rengifo single. Mike Trout was then at the plate with two runners on, needing a single to tie the score or an extra-base hit to give the Angels the lead, but he struck out.

Trout has one hit in his last 17 at-bats, dropping his average to .179. He still has a .752 OPS because he’s hit six home runs.

Trout said he feels better than the numbers.

“Hitting the ball hard, just at people,” Trout said. “Mix in a blooper here and there, getting it going. Some at-bats just a tick off but it’s coming. I feel good.”

Washington said he thinks Trout is “a little late,” and he suggested his timing is off.

“Looks like a lot of guys’ timing is off,” Washington said.

Trout’s fifth-inning strikeout started a string of 13 consecutive outs to finish the game for the Angels.

On the mound, Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz allowed four runs in 4⅔ innings.

Normally, Kochanowicz gets plenty of ground balls, but this time he was leaving his sinker up and the Rangers were getting it in the air. Five of the eight hits he allowed were in the air, including an Adolis Garcia homer.

Kochanowicz only got four groundouts among the 14 outs he recorded.

“I was trying to go with my strengths like normal,” Kochanowicz said. “Just wasn’t as dialed as I needed to be. Just too much plate on a lot of pitches.”

After winning a spot in the rotation based on a strong finish to last season and a good spring, Kochanowicz has a 6.20 ERA through his first four starts.