Decision not to challenge costs Angels in loss to Astros

HOUSTON — Now that we are in the era of the automated ball-strike system, the focus of questionable calls late in games will go from the umpires to players.

Angels catcher Logan O’Hoppe found himself in just such a spot in the eighth inning of a 9-7 loss to the Houston Astros on Sunday.

O’Hoppe caught a 2-and-2, two-out pitch from Drew Pomeranz to Isaac Paredes. It was called a ball, but pitch tracking showed that it nicked the bottom of the zone.

A tap of O’Hoppe’s helmet would have certainly overturned the call and ended the inning, sending the game to the ninth inning still tied. Instead, Pomeranz threw another pitch, and Paredes dropped it into center field for a two-run double. The Astros added an insurance run on a José Altuve double.

After the game, O’Hoppe said his strategy in that moment was to only challenge if he was “100%” sure. He said he was taking into consideration that the Angels had only one challenge remaining. He said he would have lowered the threshold of certainty he needed to challenge, but he was conscious of the fact that the Angels had the top of their order due in the ninth, and he didn’t want them to be without a challenge.

“It’s tough to look back and say, alright, ‘Let’s take a chance here,’” O’Hoppe said. “Honestly when I caught the pitch, I didn’t even think there was a chance. So that’s why I didn’t bother.”

It was a tough end to the series for O’Hoppe, who made three errors in the first three games.

Manager Kurt Suzuki said the pitch should have been challenged, while also acknowledging the difficulty of that position.

“Logan’s been arguably our best guy at challenging,” Suzuki said. “The speed of the game, he at the time felt like it was a ball and we trust him. It was just one of those calls. We look back and we’re like, ‘Oh, that was a strike,’ but in the real time we all thought it was down… We didn’t get that one right. But you gotta move on. We trust him.”

Suzuki also agreed with O’Hoppe’s assertion that there was some value in making sure they still had a challenge when they came to bat. In fact, Mike Trout used two challenges in the top of the ninth, overturning two called strikes on his way to a walk.

“Let’s say (O’Hoppe) challenged and we lost, then we go into the ninth and Mike didn’t get a chance to challenge that, he wouldn’t have gotten on base,” Suzuki said.

Clearly, the situation also would have been different if the Angels were protecting a lead instead of in a tie game, when the challenges on defense are more valuable. The Astros demonstrated that in the top of the ninth. With two outs and two on, Yoan Moncada took a pitch that would have been a game-ending third strike. It was called a ball. Astros catcher Christian Vazquez nonetheless challenged, and the replay showed the pitch to be a couple inches out of the zone.

Moncada ended up striking out anyway, ending a frustrating game for the Angels.

After they played two clean games to win the first two games of the season-opening four-game series, they had issues on defense and on the mound in the last two games, giving up 20 runs. The Angels made three errors on Saturday and they issued nine walks on Sunday.

The only consolation was that they scored enough runs to give them a chance to win each of the last two games. They led in the fifth both days.

On Sunday, they fell behind 4-0 in the second but quickly jumped back into the game with four runs in the third.

Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel drew walks, sandwiched around a Trout single, and then Soler yanked a three-run double down the left field line. An out later, Jo Adell knocked in Soler with a single.

The Angels took the lead an inning later, on Neto’s two-run homer. Neto had only three hits in the season-opening four-game series, but they were two homers and a double. He also drew five walks.

Neto’s homer actually gave Jack Kochanowicz a chance at a victory after a shaky start.

Kochanowicz seemed out of sorts from the beginning. In the first inning, he stumbled on a delivery to Yordan Alvarez and didn’t release the pitch, which was a pitch timer violation and a ball, resulting in a walk.

In the second, Kochanowicz lost footing with his plant foot as he delivered a 2-and-1 pitch to Cam Smith. That pitch was a ball, and then he walked him on the next pitch.

After a visit from pitching coach Mike Maddux, Kochanowicz gave up a two-run single. Two more runs scored in the inning on a hit, a walk and an error by third baseman Yoán Moncada, putting the Angels down 4-0.

“I don’t really have a direct explanation,” Kochanowicz said. “I think I was just getting out of my lower half, how I need to be moving and obviously that second (inning) got away from me a little bit. The falling over, I don’t really know. I don’t know if it’s the mound or my cleats or whatever, but I don’t think it’ll happen again.”

They got back into the game and Kochanowicz righted himself for a couple innings, finally coming out after allowing the first two hitters of the fifth to reach. Both runs came around to score on a double against Chase Silseth.

Right-hander Sam Bachman kept the game tied by pitching two scoreless innings, with the help of inning-ending diving catches from left fielder Josh Lowe in the sixth and Neto in the seventh.

Pomeranz couldn’t get out of the eighth unscathed. After the missed call, Pomeranz threw a fastball that was a few inches outside, and Paredes reached for it to drop it into center field, just beyond the dive of Adell. Pomeranz then threw Altuve a fastball down the middle, leading to the last run.

Had the Angels minimized the damage in the eighth, they would have had a better shot in the ninth, with the top of the order and an offense that had been clicking for most of the weekend.

“The hitting guys, the work that they’ve been putting in has been good,” Suzuki said. “The routines have been good. The mentality, the approaches, have all been awesome. It was a good series for the offense, no doubt.”

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