DETROIT —Whatever positive vibes the Angels generated during their 90-minute pregame meeting must have dissipated during the subsequent 2-hour, 45-minute rain delay.
When the tarp was pulled and the Angels returned to the field, they looked like the same team that has been limping along for weeks, doing very little right.
The Angels lost, 6-2, to the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night, dropping their sixth straight game and 14th in the last 17.
Veteran outfielder Kevin Pillar said one of the messages during the pregame meeting was to try to focus on the little things to win a game, rather than thinking about individual numbers.
“It’s not saying let’s go win six, seven, eight in a row,” Pillar said. “Let’s just go out and try to win today, whatever it takes to win today’s game. However you need to do that, move a runner, bunt, advance on a dirt ball. Whatever that takes, it takes the focus off of what you’re doing and the focus on the team and trying to win a game. At the end of the day, numbers are going to be there. And that’s a message that was shared in here multiple times over.”
Pillar said the Angels are learning hard lessons right now.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys here, growing and maturing,” Pillar said. “And a lot of guys in here are getting opportunities to play. It’s exciting for a lot of these guys. And you know, this game’s humbling, and I think a lot of guys are being humbled right now. And I think there’s a lot of lessons that can be learned from this.”
What’s mostly going wrong lately is that the Angels (54-78) aren’t hitting. They had five hits on Tuesday, their batting average dropping to .196 over the last 17 games. They are averaging 2.7 runs per game.
Manager Ron Washington said the bats “are still frozen.”
Asked what he could do to help them thaw, he said: “We’re doing everything we can. I don’t see where I can do much with the lineup. We just need those guys to come through, string some base hits together. If we can string some base hits together and put a few runs on the board, it can make a difference. If you’re not scoring runs, the pitchers gotta be perfect. You can’t be perfect in the big leagues and the plays that have to be made, we have to make them.”
Starter Johnny Cueto wasn’t perfect, and the Angels also didn’t make plays behind him. Three misplays in the fourth inning led to two runs after had retired all nine hitters in the first three innings.
Left fielder Taylor Ward got his glove on a ball at the warning track, but he couldn’t make the play and it went for a leadoff triple. Right fielder Jo Adell also misplayed a ball, allowing Matt Vierling to take third base on a double. Vierling then scored when shortstop Zach Neto couldn’t make the play on a ball hit just to his left.
Neto then made a nice running catch of a pop-up to help Cueto avoid further damage.
Then Cueto gave up three homers in the fifth and sixth.
“He was using the inside part of the plate (in the first three innings) and then he started going away,” Washington said. “And his changeup wasn’t getting down where he wanted it, and his sinker was down the middle of the plate.”
Cueto, a 38-year-old who spent most of the season in the minors, started the game with a clinic for the Angels’ young pitchers on how to finesse your way through a lineup without overpowering stuff. He retired all nine hitters on just 29 pitches.
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“I didn’t change anything,” Cueto said through an interpreter. “I had the same aggressiveness. Three pitches beat me.”
Cueto allowed to homers Jake Rogers, Riley Greene or Kerry Carpenter. Cueto also walked Vierling just before Carpenter’s homer, putting the Angels down by four.
That was too big of a deficit for the Angels the way they’re hitting these days. One of their five hits was Nolan Schanuel’s dribbler in front of the plate and another was a Neto pop-up that the Tigers allowed to drop in right field.
It was a quiet night for a team grinding toward the end of a lost season.
“We’ve got to do whatever it takes to shore up the little things, you know, before the end of the season,” Pillar said. “Because this was a year of development and growth. But the message in here is, come back in spring training. When that last game’s played, there’s no excuse anymore. It’s about winning. So trying to balance those two things, and it’s a difficult thing to do.”
