ANAHEIM — A day after Jack Kochanowicz spent his first day in a big league clubhouse, standing in front of reporters and telling them about his dream come true, it became a nightmare.
The Angels brought Kochanowicz for his major league debut on Thursday, and he gave up four runs in the first inning of an 11-0 loss to the Seattle Mariners.
Kochanowicz made it through three innings, and he was charged with five runs.
“Welcome to the big leagues,” Angels manager Ron Washington said, recalling his conversation with Kochanowicz. “Got to make some adjustments. You should be proud of the fact that you stood out there and battled. And you just got to make the adjustments on getting the ball down. That’s about it. It wasn’t anything too serious.”
The Angels’ rotation has been an issue for more than a month, starting with Reid Detmers’ demotion to Triple-A and continuing with Patrick Sandoval’s Tommy John surgery.
That’s left two holes in the rotation that the the Angels have been unable to fill with any sort of consistent production, leading them to pull Kochanowicz from Double-A Rocket City.
The 23-year-old right-hander was the Angels’ third-round draft pick in 2019. He was added to the 40-man roster last winter, and began this season at Double-A. Although he struggled at the start of the season, his 2.90 ERA over his last nine games with the Trash Pandas prompted the Angels to give him a shot.
It went horribly, from the start.
His fourth pitch as a major leaguer was punched into the left field corner by J.P. Crawford. The ball hopped over the fence for a ground rule double.
Kochanowicz then gave up consecutive hits to Josh Rojas, Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez. Rojas was thrown out at third on Raleigh’s hit, sparing Kochanowicz some damage. He then hit Luke Raley with a pitch to load the bases.
At that point, only one run had scored, and Kochanowicz seemed to be out of it when he got Ty France to hit a bouncer to third baseman Luis Guillorme. Guillorme stepped on the bag and then threw to first to try to complete the inning-ending double play, but the throw sailed over the head of Nolan Schanuel.
A run scored on that play, and then two more on Jorge Polanco’s single to center field.
It took Kochanowicz 31 pitches, but he finally got the third out when he struck out Mitch Haniger.
Kochanowicz stuck around for two more innings, allowing another run on a Raleigh homer.
Washington said Kochanowicz showed the stuff that the Angels wanted to see, but not in the right location.
“He does have a lot of sink on his ball,” Washington said, “but in that first inning, it was sinking, but it was sinking over the plate instead of sinking down below the zone.”
Kochanowicz agreed that the solution is simple.
“As a sinker ball guy, my bread and butter is down in the zone,” Kochanowicz said. “It was a little too much up. All controllable stuff. So I’ll take it.”
He also said “the nerves weren’t too bad,” and he seemed comfortable afterward that this was merely a blip in his development.
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“The baseball is not all that different,” Kochanowicz said. “The lights, the stadium obviously you notice, but once you settle in, it’s not too big of a difference at all. It’s just that first inning. … It’s not exactly what I wanted. But just continuing to trust myself is the main thing. Not letting it do too much in my head, but just trust myself.”
The Angels then turned to left-hander Kenny Rosenberg to soak up as many innings as he could, saving the rest of the bullpen for the weekend.
Rosenberg got through six innings, but he gave up six runs, including homers by Crawford and Raleigh.
By using Rosenberg, the Angels eliminated one of their choices to pitch the series finale on Sunday. They could now bring back Roansy Contreras, who has an 8.22 ERA in three starts, or they could promote someone from the minors. Right-hander Sam Bachman, who was scratched from his Double-A start on Friday, is also a candidate.
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