Rangers get to Matt Shoemaker early and never look back, Angels lose 7-3

Angels 3  Rangers 7

Shoemaker had an ugly night, to say the very least. He lasted three innings, and gave up a total of seven hits, six earned runs and three walks. The Rangers just had his number right from the start, hopping on his fastball at almost every opportunity; the off-speed stuff was no fallback option tonight, either, as that was also getting hit. The Bearded One was out there sweating bullets instead of throwing rocks, a sight we saw a few times in Spring Training, not to mention some bad nights in 2015.

Cam Bedrosian and the rest of the recent bullpen mop up crew were decent enough, holding the Rangers to only one more run, but the damage was done early in the Shoemaker innings. The Angels managed to get some offense, they just couldn't muster enough to win the game of catch up they were playing on the scoreboard. Cliff Pennington had a nice hit off the outfield wall, a stand-up triple; Kole Calhoun had an RBI single and Carlos Perez got an RBI on a groundout. I mean, that's good...but this team needs more.

Three runs with the pitching staff we've seen thus far is not going to do the trick night in and night out. The Angels so far have given up an average just north of six runs per game; There are some lingering question marks in the rotation and the bullpen, and the Angels are looking like a team that is going to need to score a lot of runs. The only problem is they're also looking like a team that wont score a lot of runs.

That isn't to say the Angels didn't have their chances tonight. They ended up 1-9 with men in scoring position, and even blew a bases loaded situation in the bottom of the 8th. So far, it's a bumpy Angels ride; pitching and hitting is coming in and out of focus. They show up and perform sporadically, like a frustrating session of Whack-A-Mole. Tonight there were no moles whacked. Maybe next time?