One rough inning costs Kyle Hendricks, Angels in loss to Astros

Jeff Fletcher, The Orange County Register on Apr 13, 2025

Published in Baseball

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HOUSTON — The encouraging start to Kyle Hendricks’ season came to a quick end with one rough inning.

Hendricks gave up five runs in the second inning of the Los Angeles Angels’ 7-3 loss to the Houston Astros on Sunday afternoon.

The loss also ended the Angels’ season-opening streak of four straight series wins, as they lost two of three.

The Angels (9-6) kept mashing homers, but the blasts hit by Taylor Ward, Nolan Schanuel and Jorge Soler were all solos, and that was not enough to overcome the damage done against Hendricks.

After homers from Ward – his fifth in five games – and Schanuel put the Angels up 2-0, Hendricks allowed four of the first five hitters to reach in the bottom of the inning, tying the score.

He was an out away from escaping without further damage, but he left an 87.7 mph fastball up in the zone and Isaac Paredes knocked it into the Crawford Boxes beyond the left field fence for a three-run homer.

“It’s the second inning, just one of those things, got out of rhythm,” Hendricks said. “The fastballs were up, over the middle. Just don’t have room for error to get away with that. Just one of those things. Couldn’t make the adjustment quick enough.”

Manager Ron Washington also picked out a defensive mistake that could have changed the inning. Mauricio Dubon singled to center field to drive in the second run of the inning. Center fielder Jo Adell threw toward third. Shortstop Kevin Newman was in position to cut the ball off and throw to second, where he would have been able to get Dubon, but he instead let the ball go through. That would have been the second out of the inning and would have taken one runner off the bases.

“I’m not blaming Newman for that, but I’m just saying these are the little things that you see in the ballgame that you’ve definitely got to make sure you take care of,” Washington said.

That inning spoiled what has otherwise been a strong start to the season for Hendricks. He allowed more runs on the Paredes homer (three) than he has allowed the 14 innings he’s pitched this season (two).

Overall, Hendricks has a 4.20 ERA through three starts.

“I feel really good,” Hendricks said. “When I’m doing things I want to do, we’re getting the results we want. Just a little bit out of mechanics. Not seeing the glove quite as sharply. That’s when I get bad. So just keep a simple focus. Stay on the glove, stay down, and the results have been what I need. So just gotta stay there.”

At the plate, the good news was that the Angels are still hitting homers. They now have 28 homers in their last 10 games, which is a franchise record. Their 30 homers for the season lead the majors.

The bad news was that they were all solo homers on Sunday because they didn’t do enough to create rallies against Astros right-hander Hayden Wesneski. He struck out 10 and didn’t walk anyone.

Washington said they knew that Wesneski was going to be around the strike zone, so they should have not have been taking so many pitches.

“Early in the count, we could have jumped on some pitches and made a difference,” Washington said. “We gave him too many pitches.”

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