The Angels pitching staff suffered another rough night Wednesday, allowing the Tigers 12 runs in a 12-10 defeat. With all the injuries to the starting staff and the death of Nick Adenhart, one might expect the starters to be having problems this year. Instead, the rotation is posting a 3.32 ERA. It’s the bullpen that having the most problems, with an 8.63 ERA. Think about that. If a team can force out a LAnaheim starter after six innings, they can expect to score three more earned runs in the game. In half the innings, Angels relievers have walked three more batters than the Angels starters and allowed 13 more runs. Justin Speier is the only regular reliever with an ERA under six. With the starters averaging less than six innings per game, the Angels are relying on a relief staff that is less than reliable.
I’m not going to defend the Angels bullpen. It’s been terrible, as a glance at the league stats will confirm. But the Angels are actually getting good starting pitching, which carries them through most of the game.
The real culprit is the hitting, which has been bad through all nine innings. Even after the outburst last night the Angels rank tenth in the league in runs scored per game. This puts enormous pressure on the bullpen (and the starters, for that matter) because they hardly ever have a nice lead to work with.
The current lineup is a bunch of guys who have trouble lifting their OPS much about .700. In fact, only two regulars, Hunter and Abreu, and one semi-regular, Napoli, are over .700 right now. You’re not going to score much with “hitters” like that.