Angels Lose Series Opener Against Athletics, 9-3, As GM Minasian Also Gets Fired
· Yahoo Sports
The Los Angeles Angels are looking to repeat the series win they posted against the Athletics in Sacramento last weekend, but they’ll have a hill to climb if they want to do it in Anaheim as they lost the first game of their three-game series in a 9-3 route.
Angels starter Walbert Urena had a tough go in this one, although he did match zeroes with A’s starter J.T. Ginn until the Halos staked him to a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning. The run came on an RBI single by Donovan Walton to score Wade Meckler, but things went downhill in a hurry after that.
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The A’s put up a seven spot on Urena in the fifth as they batted around and sent 11 hitters to the plate. The big RBI hits came from Jeff McNeil, Alika Williams and Henry Bolte, with Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers also driving in runs with base hits.
The end of the inning got especially ugly. Urena was charged with a balk for a disengagement violation, and he also contributed with a wild pitch has he couldn’t contain the traffic on the bases. Manager Kurt Suzuki got ejected later in the game for arguing a catcher’s interference call, so this was a bad night all around.
The Angels did get two runs back in the bottom of the inning on a two-run homer by Jo Adell that scored Zach Neto to make it 7-3. But the A’s made that irrelevant with two of their own in the seventh off reliever Brent Suter to put the game away, with Kurtz and Jonah Heim driving home the runs.
The loss of composure by Urena was the most disappointing aspect of this loss. He’s done a good job of keeping his poise and staying away from the big inning, but this outing ended a string of mostly good efforts in which he’s given up just six earned runs over four starts.
The evening also took on a somber tone with the news that GM Perry Minasian had been fired, with John Mozeliak taking over as a consultant to lead a search for the next GM who will presumably take over during the offseason.
Angels fans will undoubtedly be delighted to see Minasian get the gate, as they’ve been clamoring for his firing for some time. But it was a tough blow for Suzuki, who was hired as a lame-duck manager by Minasian and now finds himself in limbo for at least the rest of the season.
"Tough day,” Suzuki said after the game in a piece written by Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. “It's part of the job and it's a business and it happens. I’ve talked with Perry. He's disappointed like anybody would be.”