Mike Fiers has been able to offset his decreased fastball velocity over the past few years by developing a curveball with tremendous vertical movement. The pitch is essential to his success and helped him to a career-high 15 wins in 2019.
That curveball had trouble finding the strike zone on Tuesday night, and the Angels pounced on Fiers as a result in the A’s 6-0 loss at Angel Stadium. Fiers was pulled with two outs in a fourth inning that saw him tagged for five runs, all of which scored on three homers.
It was clear that Fiers was searching for a good feel on his curve. Even through his first three scoreless frames -- which included a point where Fiers had retired seven batters in a row -- the curveball was just not there. Fiers threw his first seven curves for balls, and the eighth was drilled by Albert Pujols in the fourth for a single, putting runners at first and second after Anthony Rendon led off the inning with a homer.
“He mixed his pitches well early on. He was throwing some good changeups, but he probably doesn’t have the best feel for his curveball yet,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of Fiers. “He left some balls over the middle of the plate to some guys that are swinging the bat pretty well.”
The lack of a breaking ball left Fiers confined to a fastball that averaged 88.2 mph and minimal variation in pitch speeds. Following the single by Pujols, Fiers virtually abandoned the curve, throwing it only one more time -- for a strike to Brian Goodwin to get to an 0-2 count just before Goodwin crushed a fastball for the third homer off Fiers in the five-run inning. Of his 76 pitches, Fiers threw the curveball 13 times and only generated three strikes with it.
While missing a pitch in his arsenal was an issue, Fiers said his downfall was a result of serving up too many balls in the middle of the strike zone. He also surrendered a backbreaking three-run homer to Jason Castro in that fourth, as the catcher crushed a 3-1 hanging slider over the center-field wall.
“It’s tough because whenever another team can eliminate a pitch, it makes it easier on them,” Fiers said. “To be honest, that fourth inning was more just leaving the ball over the plate. The 3-1 count to Castro was right down the middle. But the wheels kind of fell off when Pujols put one into left field.”
Any pitcher without their best stuff could struggle against this Angels lineup. An intimidating middle of the order that features Rendon, Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani has now combined to go 13-for-25 with four home runs and eight RBIs against A’s pitchers through the first two games of this three-game series.
“I’d say it’s top three in baseball,” Fiers said. “When you got Justin Upton hitting seventh -- he’s struggling right now, but that guy was an absolute stud for years -- it’s definitely scary. Guys at the top get on base and find ways to get on for their big guys -- Trout, Ohtani and Rendon. It’s a very tough lineup. But we’ll be all right. We’ve had a couple of bad starts, but we’re still a very good team.”
Ultimately, a better outing by Fiers might not have mattered with the way Angels starter Dylan Bundy was dealing. The right-hander baffled A’s hitters, tossing seven innings of four-hit ball before handing it off to the Angels’ bullpen. This wasn’t the first time Bundy has presented problems for the A’s this season. During the opening series of the season in Oakland, Bundy held the A’s to one run on three hits through 6 2/3 innings in an Angels win.
Tuesday night’s version of Bundy was different from the one Melvin saw a couple of weeks ago.
“He actually threw even more breaking balls tonight. More sliders, a lot of changeups and curveballs. And then he'd just show his fastball at times,” Melvin said. “When you're going soft-soft, then you throw a fastball, it plays better than the velocity looks. He just had us off balance. You have to give him credit. He pitched another great game against us."
Pinder’s spectacular grab
Chad Pinder provided the lone highlight of the night for the A’s. Entering the game in right field as a defensive replacement in the eighth, Pinder chased down a flyout by Trout and made a spectacular catch on the run before colliding against the right-field wall in foul territory.
Even Trout was impressed by the catch, pointing to Pinder in acknowledgement before running back to the dugout.
“When the ball went up, I didn’t think it would stay in, let alone be caught,” Melvin said. “He showed us right away that he plays a terrific outfield."