ANAHEIM — The Angels are the only team in baseball to have used the same five starting pitchers this season, a remarkable achievement considering the deluge of elbow and shoulder injuries that shelve many of the game’s top arms every year.
But it might be time to reassess at least one spot in that rotation after another shoddy start by Jack Kochanowicz, who was rocked for eight runs and eight hits in 2⅔ innings of Thursday night’s 11-4 loss to the Texas Rangers at Angel Stadium.
Kochanowicz gave up four straight singles in the first inning to put the Angels in a 2-0 hole. The 24-year-old right-hander seemed to recover with two strikeouts in a one-two-three second, but the third inning was a disaster, the Rangers sending 12 men to the plate during a seven-run, six-hit, three-walk, one-balk rally for a 9-0 lead.
By the time Angels reliever Carson Fulmer allowed the two runners he inherited in the third to score, Kochanowicz’s ERA had ballooned to 6.03 in 19 starts, the highest among American League pitchers who have thrown at least 90 innings.
Kochanowicz is 3-9 this season and 0-3 with a 7.51 ERA in his last nine starts, in which he’s given up 37 earned runs in 44⅓ innings. His last win came against the Dodgers on May 16.
“Listen, anytime you’re having the issues that he’s going through right now or the lack of success … you have to discuss everything, right?” interim manager Ray Montgomery said, when asked if the Angels are considering a change to the rotation. “I mean, we have a responsibility to everybody here, so we’ll talk about everything.”
The challenge the Angels would face if they did want to demote Kochanowicz to the minor leagues is that unless they want to return starter-turned-reliever Reid Detmers to the rotation, there are no obvious alternatives.
Detmers would need two to three weeks to build up enough endurance to throw four or five innings, and the left-hander has become such a valuable reliever, with a 22-inning scoreless streak that was snapped Wednesday night, that his loss would leave a gaping hole in the bullpen.
“I would hate to say no to anything, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Montgomery said about the possibility of Detmers moving back to the rotation. “Never say never, but …”
The three most viable minor league rotation options would probably be Triple-A right-hander Victor Mederos, Double-A left-hander Sam Aldegheri and Class-A right-hander Ryan Johnson, a 2024 second-round draft pick who opened the season in the Angels’ bullpen but has thrived in the Tri-City rotation.
Fulmer might even be a better short-term option than Kochanowicz after the veteran right-hander threw 88 pitches in 5⅓ innings Thursday night. Fulmer blanked the Rangers on one hit from the fourth through seventh but gave up a two-run homer to Adolis Garcia in the eighth.
“Carson threw the ball great,” Montgomery said. “He was built up early in the year, and then he backed off a little bit. To come out and do that in that situation, it was a really big help. … Again, we’ll look at everything and talk about everything.”
The Angels made some noise at the plate when Taylor Ward hit a two-run homer off Rangers starter Patrick Corbin in the fifth and LaMonte Wade Jr. hit an RBI single off reliever Jacob Latz in the sixth to cut the lead to 9-3.
But the Angels dug far too deep of a hole in the first three innings to mount a serious comeback.
Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Garcia and Jonah Heim all singled in the first, with Garcia and Heim driving in runs.
Seager walked to open the third, Semien singled, Garcia grounded into a fielder’s choice, and Heim struck out for the second out. Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter hit RBI singles for a 4-0 lead, and Langford scored on a Kochanowicz balk for a 5-0 lead.
Jake Burger’s RBI double made it 6-0, and walks to Alejandro Osuna and Josh Smith loaded the bases. Seager’s two-run single off Fullmer made it 8-0, and Semien’s RBI single made it 9-0.
“Just bad,” Kochanowicz said of his start. “I didn’t make the adjustment I needed to. It’s frustrating, obviously. I just have to throw the ball better.”
Kochanowicz’s biggest problem Thursday night was that his best pitch, a 96-mph sinker that he has used to induce 19 double plays, the second-most in the league, and a 52.1% ground-ball rate, third-best in the league, wasn’t very effective.
“I try to lean on my sinker, and when that’s not working, it’s kind of tough to pick and choose when to go away from that approach,” Kochanowicz said. “They singled me to death today. Sometimes it’s the long ball. It’s just trying to figure out what their approach is and figure out my best way around that.”
Seager, the former Dodgers star, was pulled in the fifth inning, but not until after he improved his average against the Angels to .625 (15 for 24) with three home runs and eight RBIs in seven games this season and .332 (79 for 238) with 15 homers and 42 RBIs in 62 games in his career.
Angels infielder Kevin Newman made his second pitching appearance of the series and retired the side in order on four pitches in the ninth. Unlike Kochanowicz, Newman received a nice ovation as he walked off the mound.
