Angels and Ricky Nolasco get out-dueled by Astros and Mike Fiers in 3-1 loss

Angels 1 Astros 3

The Angels knew they’d have some tough battles on their hands with this weekend’s series against the Astros in Minute Maid Park, but one of the silver linings was that they wouldn’t be going against Houston’s McCullers or Keuchel. Last night, they reaped the benefits of that fortunate scheduling, but today...well, they may as well have been going up against McCullers or Keuchel, because starter Mike Fiers was too much for the Halos to handle.

Fiers gave up just TWO hits to the Angels: A single from Albert Pujols in the fourth, and a Luis Valbuena single in the eighth. He finished the day with 7.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB and 8 Ks. The lone, solitary run the Halos managed to score was via an error and an infield hit in the bottom of the eighth, so it’s safe to say that Fiers straight up manhandled the visiting ball club this afternoon; all this coming after the Angels scored 20 runs over their previous two games.

The dominance of Fiers was a nightmare, but Angels starter Ricky Nolasco can hold his high back at the hotel tonight, so at least our guy put up a solid outing, too. Nolasco pitched 7.0 innings, and sure, he gave up eight hits, but he only allowed two runs (both earned, and yes, one was a home run, giving Nolasco the league lead in HRs allowed, yay), and most days, we’d be pretty stoked on our starter giving us seven solid frames of two-run baseball against the team that leads the AL West, and sits on top of many power rankings.

It was a truly valiant effort from Nolasco; he kept the Angels in the game and within striking distance, but again, Fiers was not going to let them get back in this one. Tomorrow, they’ll have another shot to take down the kings, but like Omar always said, “You come at the king, you best not miss”; today, they missed, but just barely. Unfortunately, that doesn’t count. Tomorrow, though...let’s hope for a kickass ending and for our boys’ aim to be true.