Julio Teheran hammered as Angels get swept by Dodgers

Anthony Rendon continued his heavenly homestand, but more subpar pitching send the Angels to a second straight weekend sweep, falling to the Dodgers, 8-3 on Sunday afternoon in Anaheim.

Julio Teheran threw a season-high 60 pitches put allowed four runs, including two home runs, part of the seven batted balls tagged with an exit velocity of at least 98 mph, per Baseball Savant. Teheran only pitched 3⅓ innings, which is the longest of his three starts.

“You try to be perfect, but that’s hard to do. We’re going to make mistakes,” Teheran said after the game. “Sometimes the mistakes are big, and that’s what happened to me today.”

He has recorded 24 outs and allowed 19 batters to reach base, allowing 11 runs. His ERA is 12.38.

“Overall, it just wasn’t sharp. There was nothing there to build off today,” manager Joe Maddon said. “We’ve got to keep throwing him out out there. We’ve got to keep stretching him out, getting him back where he had been, because he’s probably been more impacted by the late start than anybody.”

On one hand it’s understandable that Teheran isn’t fully stretched out or even effective yet. After all, he was delayed reporting to summer camp after a bout with COVID-19. In an ideal world, Teheran would still be at the alternate training site in Long Beach as he works his way back into form.

Instead, Teheran has started three times for a major league team, further taxing a bullpen that has thrown more innings than all but four teams. That the Angels have nobody better than Teheran who can start at the moment is particularly damning.

“If we had a Triple-A regular rehab to send somebody out, we would have done that more than likely,” Maddon said. “But it was the best we can do under the circumstances. Now we just have to reassess, talk to him, and try to get him back where he had been.”

Angels starters have lasted five innings 10 times this season, and they’ve split those games, with two of those losses coming Friday and Saturday in this series. In games their starting pitcher doesn’t complete five innings, the Angels are 2-10.

Notes

• Anthony Rendon homered in the fourth inning, his sixth straight game with an extra-base hit, just three shy of Darin Erstad’s club record. On the homestand, Rendon is 8-for-20 (.400) with five home runs, a double, seven runs scored and seven RBI.
• David Fletcher singled in the fifth inning, extending his hitting streak to a career-high 15 games.
• Jo Adell had his second multi-hit game of the homestand with two singles, but more importantly he was hitting the ball very hard. He had exit velocities of 115.5, 111.5, 106.3, and 101.4 mph, per Baseball Savant. He had three total batted balls with 100-mph exit velocity in his first seven games. Adell’s last two at-bats Sunday, a sixth-inning single and eighth-inning flyout, were the first two of his 100-mph batted balls with a positive launch angle.
• Four home runs allowed by Angels pitchers on Sunday is a season high.
• Against the Dodgers, starters Patrick Sandoval, Andrew Heaney, and Teheran allowed 13 runs (12 earned runs) in 15 innings.

Sunday particulars

Home runs: Anthony Rendon (6), Brian Goodwin (4); Keibert Ruiz (1), Max Muncy (5), Corey Seager (5), Matt Beaty (2)

WP — Scott Alexander (1-0): 2 IP, 3 hits, 1 run

LP — Julio Teheran (0-2): 3⅓ IP, 6 hits, 4 runs, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts

Up next

The Angels host the Giants for two games, with Griffin Canning scheduled to start Monday night (6:40 p.m., Fox Sports West). He was moved up on regular rest, with Dylan Bundy instead starting Tuesday on six days rest after pitching 16 innings in his last two starts.