Angels left-hander Patrick Sandoval was back to his usual self Sunday against the Miami Marlins.
On the other side of battling food poisoning, which slowed him down during his last start against the Minnesota Twins, Sandoval pitched six innings, giving up two runs and eight hits while striking out two and walking two.
Those two runs didn’t seem like much but were more than enough for the Marlins. The Angels had already lost the series Saturday night, when fielding mistakes doomed them. On Sunday, a three-game sweep was completed with a 2-0 shutout defeat to the Marlins (28-26), who now share the same record as the Angels.
“We’re getting on a plane now and leaving this one behind,” Angels manager Phil Nevin said. “It’s not a good taste in the mouth, obviously, after the way the home stand was going. At the end of the day, we won more than we lost, but certainly not what we were setting out to do after what we’d accomplished the first two series against two good teams.
“And we didn’t play our best this weekend, that’s no secret.”
After opening the homestand with five wins in six games, including a three-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox and a series win over the American League Central-leading Minnesota Twins, the Angels closed it out with a three-game losing streak. They were shut out for the first time in 95 games, dating back to Aug. 21, 2022. That had been the longest streak in the majors.
The Marlins, who have not gone unnoticed in the National League East, showed up the Angels all series. On Sunday, with 20-year-old starter Eury Pérez (2-1) — the youngest pitcher in Marlins history, who made his debut May 12 and has drawn comparisons to his Cy Young Award-winning teammate, Sandy Alcantara — getting the nod , the Angels went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and left 11 stranded on base.
The Angels dropped to fourth in the American League West, six games behind the first-place Texas Rangers, and will go on the road to face the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros this week.
The Angels made some noise in the bottom of the ninth inning, the tying runs moving into scoring position with Mike Trout at the plate and two outs. Trout popped out to second base.
Trout went hitless Sunday but extended his on-base streak to 10 games when he was intentionally walked in the seventh. Shohei Ohtani got his only hit of the series, a single in the fourth. Nevin said he was not concerned about the stars’ offensive productions.
“Those things, they happen,” Nevin said. “I’m not worried about them. I mean, they come out of it and they go crazy. It just so happens that right now both of them aren’t at their best maybe.
“Still,” Nevin continued, “we get to the point in a game where Mike’s up there with the chance to win it, tie it? I’ll take that every day.”
Sandoval was grateful to get his team through six innings but pointed out that he is still waiting for his “stuff” from last year to return. His pitching velocity is down a bit this season compared with his average in 2022, with his whiff and chase rates also down slightly.
Sandoval (3-4) is confident his numbers will improve but has still felt good about some of the end results.
“Give my team a chance to win, that’s all I really care about. The stuff will come,” Sandoval said. “If you were to just compare my stuff from last year, it’s down a little bit. There’s no hiding it, you can’t hide behind it.
“So, compete with what I have, and I think I do a pretty good job of that.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.