ANAHEIM — There is no logical reason for the Angels to be such a different team at home, but the inexplicable trend has continued.
The Angels lost 5-4 to the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday, getting swept in the series at Angel Stadium and putting an end to whatever good feelings they had after their encouraging trip.
The Angels (20-33) are now 6-19 at home, while playing .500 baseball on the road. They have won their last three road series. They haven’t won a series at home all season.
After taking two of three in Houston, a place where they traditionally have endured nightmarish visits, the Angels enjoyed an off day and then played a dud of a game on Friday and then lost two one-run games over the weekend.
On Sunday, the Angels rallied for two runs in the eighth, with Nolan Schanuel, Luis Rengifo, Taylor Ward and Kevin Pillar all collecting two-out hits. Jo Adell struck out to strand two runners.
It wasn’t enough to overcome the three-run deficit the Angels built in a poor bullpen inning.
Starter Reid Detmers gave up a leadoff single in the sixth and was pulled.
Right-hander Adam Cimber, who had stranded all 15 of the runners he inherited this season, lost the strike zone. Cimber got the first out, but then he walked the bottom two hitters in the Cleveland order to load the bases. He hit Tyler Freeman to push in a run, which pushed home a run and ended Cimber’s streak.
Cimber gave up a run of his own when he allowed a single to Andres Gimenez, and then left-hander Matt Moore walked José Ramirez to force home the third run of the inning.
The bullpen meltdown meant that Detmers took another loss on a day that he had his best outing in a month.
Detmers was charged with three runs in five-plus innings. He had allowed at least four runs in each of his previous six games, with a 9.09 ERA in 31-2/3 innings.
Detmers still walked four, hit a batter and gave up four hits. Both runs came on a Johnathan Rodriguez double with two outs and the bases loaded in the third.
He rebounded from that, though, to pitch a perfect fourth. He worked around a leadoff single in the fifth.
Matt Thaiss then gave him a chance to avoid a loss by hitting a game-tying two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth, but the Angels were soon behind again.
More to come on this story.
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