Angels bullpen blows another lead, shocking nobody, serving up a 6-4 loss to Athletics

Angels 4 Athletics 6

Today could have been a nice story of the Angels persevering in the face of such calamity as losing Shohei Ohtani from the rotation, with John Lamb getting the starting nod and holding his own. It could have also been a nice story of them snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat, after they threatened a comeback in the ninth.

But we get neither of those stories, because they didn't pull off a comeback, but more importantly, Lamb's start was ruined by the bullpen, more specifically Noe Ramirez, blowing the opportunity and giving up the lead. This is happening far, far too much, folks.

Lamb pitched a solid five inning innings and only gave up two runs during his time on the mound. It was a good day for Lamb, suffice to say, but everything went downhill once Ramirez was put in the game.

Before all that happened however, Chris Young put the Halos up by a nice margin by hitting a three-run homerun in the top of the 5th. This gave them a 3-1 advantage heading into the doom that was the sixth.

Lamb gave up a solo homer to start the sixth, and that's when Ramirez came in and got to work on blowing the Angels 3-2 lead. First, by walking in a run, of all things, and then giving up a two-run single. Just like that, the Angels had fallen behind and John Lamb's solid start was now mired in the fact that the Angels' bullpen added to their league-leading blown saves tally.

The Athletics didn't look back from there, although the Angels did try to mount a comeback in the 9th Inning as they got the tying run in scoring position but alas, there would be no sweet comeback today.

The bullpen is a liability right now and today was a textbook example of why that is. The starters are holding their own, but the relief squad is lagging when it comes to earning their keep. Things are going to get a lot rockier before they get smoothed out, I fear, so best to just hold on tight to something and get ready for chaos every time Mike Scioscia calls on his pen from here on out.