CHICAGO – In the coldest game the Angels have played in the last 13 years, every run-scoring play was going to be heightened.
So, when Los Angeles had an opportunity to pick up a pivotal out in the third inning of Wednesday’s 6-2 loss to the Cubs, manager Kurt Suzuki and his staff wanted to make sure they were right. Suzuki raised his hand, asking crew chief Chris Guccione for time to decide whether to challenge a play at the plate that had given the Cubs a one-run lead.
Nico Hoerner had doubled, and Miguel Amaya slid in as catcher Travis d’Arnaud reached to tag him. The throw appeared to have beaten Amaya to the plate, but home-plate umpire David Rackley called him safe. That prompted the pause from Suzuki.
“I felt like I had him,” d’Arnaud said. “I thought my foot blocked the plate after I got the ball. David said he thought he squeezed his hand in there, but I felt like my knee was in front of the plate.”
Managers have 15 seconds to decide whether to ask for a review and the clock ticked down as Suzuki waited for word from his bench coach, John Gibbons. The pitch clock in center field hit zero, and the umpires felt a buzz on their belts, since they all wear a device that lets them know when the 15 seconds have expired, when Suzuki asked for a review.
“I think Kurt felt like he challenged in the proper amount of time, and I told him, ‘I know what it felt like to you, but this is what it is, I’m sorry,’” Guccione told a pool reporter after the game. “He was good about it.”
The first-year manager didn’t put up too much of an argument because it’s a subjective play.
“Really, if we were late, we were late,” Suzuki said. “Can’t really argue that, even if it’s half second, a second, you can’t argue that. If you’re late, you’re late.”
It was the first of five runs the Cubs scored against left-hander Yusei Kikuchi and the Angels in the inning. The play was a spark for Chicago.
“It snowballed a little bit on us,” Suzuki said. “It’s a momentum thing. In baseball, once you get the momentum, things start rolling. With good teams, sometimes it takes a little bit to get it stopped. They got it rolling a little bit, scored some runs and that was the ballgame, pretty much.”
Kikuchi wasn’t beating himself up about Hoerner’s double or the play at the plate. The leadoff walk to the No. 9 hitter, Amaya, did him in. He had the Cubs’ designated hitter at 1-1, then threw three straight balls that weren’t close to the zone to start the back-breaking third inning.
“There were some contacts that went through the position players,” Kikuchi said through an interpreter. “But on my side, the leadoff walk to the nine-hole hitter, I think that was what brought in their rally that changed today’s game.”
Cubs starter Matthew Boyd kept the Angels in check on another chilly game at Wrigley Field. The 39-degree first-pitch temperature was tied for the fifth-coldest game in Angels history, and the chilliest since a 38-degree game in Minnesota on April 15, 2013. Boyd shut out Los Angeles through five innings before a sixth-inning RBI single from Jo Adell and an Alex Bregman error at third base plated a pair of runs.
“We hit some balls hard,” Suzuki said. “Obviously, the wind kept [them] in. [Boyd] did a good job of mixing speeds and really executing his pitches. So, you tip your hat [to] him on that one.”
The Angels will have an off-day following their 3-4 road trip to open the season, before their home opener on Friday against the Mariners at Angel Stadium.
“It’s Opening Day in Anaheim,” Suzuki said before Wednesday’s series finale. “Kind of doing Opening Day all over again, but it’s definitely going to be special.
“Home crowd and everybody’s going to be fired up, so there’s definitely going to be some emotions there.”