Angels Starter Shows Out Again Against Reds As Rotation Starts To Become A Strength
The Los Angeles Angels blew out the Cincinnati Reds last night, 10-1, but the score doesn’t indicate the amount of tough work starter Jack Kochanowicz had to do to keep the Angels in control.
Kochanowicz allowed just two hits and one run over seven innings, and he took advantage of home runs by Zach Neto and Josh Lowe , with Neto’s homer being especially timely.
The Angels starter did his heaviest lifting in the fifth inning , according to an article written by Mike Petraglia of MLB.com. Kochanowicz set up his workload on his own, walking the bases loaded against the Reds’ 7-8-9 hitters, but he got TJ Friedl to ground out to first, then retired Matt McLain on another grounder to short to get out of the jam.
“I will say this, I gave [Zach] Neto the credit for the homer the inning before,” Kochanowicz said about the short. “It took a lot of pressure off me being a 2-1 game versus a 4-1 game. I was never in a panic. I felt like I was in control the whole time. It was just a couple missed pitches. I mean, not a machine, but I felt like I was in control the whole time.”
The 25-year old Kochanowicz is still growing into the role of full-time starter, and the process comes with a lot of hit-and-miss outings. Kochanowicz was hit hard in his first start against the Houston Astros , but he’s rebounded nicely in his last two, which have featured a scoreless streak of 13 innings. As manager Kurt Suzuki noted, Kochanowicz is learning to handle self-created jams like the one he faced tonight.
“That's where the calmness and maybe the experience that Jack has helped him get through that,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “To be able to slow the game down where things can unravel quickly in this ballpark, especially. And I know the ball wasn't traveling much tonight, but things can unravel quickly. And I thought Jack did a great job of keeping his composure and executing pitches when he needed to.”
Josh Lowe made a big contribution as well, but he also praised Kochanowicz for his approach on the mound in this one.
“It started with Jack taking the ball and on seven strong like he did,” Lowe said. “He's really efficient. He kept all the guys on defense, kept us on our toes, balls put in play, and then offensively, it’s not like we let off the gas the whole game. [We] played a whole game, top to bottom, and did our part.”
Cincinnati manager Terry Francona was also aware of Kochanowicz’s approach, but in the end they weren’t able to do much about it.
“Their starter was upper-90’s fastball with two-seam movement,” said Cincinnati skipper Terry Francona, who said hitting coach Chris Valaika tried to coach his batters about Kochanowicz before the game. “Val talked to the guys before the game about trying to get him up and we weren’t able to accomplish that. And once you’re able to establish that down, that was really difficult for us.”
