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Angels’ José Suarez hit hard in blowout loss to Mariners

April 5, 2023

SEATTLE — José Suarez had little trouble shrugging off a discouraging first start of the season.

After Suarez gave up seven runs, including four on two homers by Teoscar Hernandez, in the Angels’ 11-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night, he said that he felt most of his pitches were where he wanted them.

“I was feeling my pitches right,” Suarez said through an interpreter. “I had good command. But that’s part of the game and I know I’m gonna have a better game next time.”

Through the first four games of the Angels’ season, their starters had allowed just three earned runs, but Suarez gave up more than that on two misplaced pitches to Hernandez.

The Angels were down 1-0 in the fourth when Suarez threw an 83.9 mph slider that hung at Hernandez’s thighs. He crushed it 419 feet to straightaway center field.

That was one of 26 sliders that Suarez threw among his 77 pitches. They averaged 84.9 mph, which was up from his average of 81.7 mph last season. The increased velocity was likely because Suarez threw almost entirely the harder of his two sliders against the right-handed heavy Seattle lineup. He has a slower sweeper that he uses against lefties, so he only threw that to No. 9 hitter J.P. Crawford.

Manager Phil Nevin said he likes the harder of Suarez’s sliders better, but they didn’t work on this night.

“He’s actually worked on that, building up speed on that,” Nevin said. “The harder ones he threw were actually the better ones. The location on them, that was a little different.”

Suarez also gave up an RBI double to Cal Raleigh and a single to Eugenio Suarez on sliders.

In between, he tried a different approach to Hernandez, and it didn’t go any better. Suarez threw a fastball that Hernandez blasted out for a three-run homer in the fifth, putting the Angels in a 6-0 hole.

Hernandez’s second homer sailed over the Angels’ bullpen, which at that time had no one warming up. Jaime Barría got up and threw just a handful of pitches before Suarez gave up one more hit, ending his night.

Although Barria gave up a two-run homer to A.J. Pollock and three more runs in the seventh, he still soaked up the final 3-2/3 innings. That allows the Angels’ high-leverage relievers to be ready for the rubber game of the series on Wednesday.

They’ll send Shohei Ohtani to the mound in search of a 4-2 trip to begin the season.

In truth, Tuesday’s game was the one in this series they seemed most likely to lose. Suarez is the Angels’ No. 5 starter, and he was going against Seattle right-hander Luis Castillo.

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Castillo, who had a 2.99 ERA last season, clamped down on an Angels’ lineup that had scored 26 runs in the previous three games.

Taylor Ward led off the first with a double, but the Angels stranded him there. The Angels were down 3-0 in the fifth when Brandon Drury opened the door for them to get back into the game with another leadoff double.

Again, the Angels failed to convert.

And by the time they came to bat in the sixth, they were down by eight and looking forward to Wednesday.

“He was really good,” Nevin said of Castillo. “They got him a couple runs early and he’s really good. I thought we took some good swings here and there. We didn’t give up. We got a chance to win a series and have a really nice road trip tomorrow.”

Orange County Register

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Angels’ José Suarez hit hard in blowout loss to Mariners

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