HOUSTON — The Angels’ experiment to turn Michael Lorenzen into a starter, which was going so well for the first two months, has not worked lately.
The right-hander gave up eight runs in three innings in the Angels’ 8-1 loss to the Houston Astros on Friday night.
Lorenzen now has an 8.61 ERA over his last five starts, after posting a 3.19 ERA in his first eight starts.
His decline coincides almost perfectly with the overall trajectory of the team.
The Angels signed Lorenzen, 30, to a $7 million, one-year deal last winter, bringing the Orange County native home and giving him the opportunity to return to the rotation after working as a reliever for the previous six years.
Lorenzen wanted to do it — and the Angels thought it could work — because he throws six pitches, including five that he uses regularly. That pitch mix was wasted in short bullpen outings, they figured.
It certainly seemed to work for the first two months, but it definitely has not worked since then. On Friday night he allowed a season-high seven earned runs.
Lorenzen pitched a scoreless first, thanks to a double play. In the second, he threw a knee-high fastball inside to Yuli Gurriel, and he golfed it into the Crawford boxes over the left field fence. An out later, Jake Meyers hit a Lorenzen fastball the other way, over the right-field fence.
The third inning started with third baseman Tyler Wade unable to cleanly get the ball out of his glove, for an error. Kyle Tucker then hit a routine ground ball that got through the hole because the Astros put on a hit-and-run.
A sacrifice fly drove in a run. After a walk to Gurriel, J.J. Matijevic doubled home two more runs. Two batters later, Chas McCormick got a fastball over the middle and he launched it over the right field fence, completing the six-run inning.
After Lorenzen was done, Elvis Peguero pitched three scoreless innings. It was Peguero’s first outing since allowing four runs in a game in which he was apparently tipping his pitches.
Offensively, the Angels could do nothing with right-hander Cristian Javier, who was pitching for the first time since he worked the first seven innings of a combined no-hitter last weekend.
Shohei Ohtani hit a first-inning homer — his 18th of the season — but then the Angels did not have another baserunner against Javier. They struck out 14 times in seven innings against Javier. Their next hit was a Luis Rengifo bloop single against reliever Bryan Abreu in the eighth.
