ANAHEIM -- He wasn’t quite as sharp as he’d been during his recent run of dominance, but Reid Detmers still did enough, registering his seventh straight quality start in Monday’s series opener against the Mariners.
Detmers kept his stellar second half going, allowing three runs on seven hits and a walk over six innings in a 6-4 win at Angel Stadium. He was hurt by a three-run homer to Cal Raleigh in the fourth but was otherwise solid yet again. But the three runs he surrendered matched the combined number of runs he had allowed over his previous six starts.
In 11 outings since the All-Star break, Detmers has pitched like an ace, posting an MLB-best 1.65 ERA with 76 strikeouts and 11 walks in 65 1/3 innings. It has helped him put together an impressive season in his return to the rotation after pitching in relief last year and being a trade candidate at the Deadline. Detmers, who is under team control for two more years, improved to 6-8 with a 3.36 ERA in a career-high 30 starts.
He’s also up to 199 strikeouts in 174 innings and is just one away from becoming the first Angels pitcher to strike out 200 batters since Shohei Ohtani did it in 2022. Only 11 pitchers in franchise history have accomplished that feat and the last lefty to do it was Chuck Finley in 1999. Detmers is scheduled to get two more starts this year so it’s essentially a foregone conclusion he’ll reach that total.
Detmers, though, was ambushed early with J.P. Crawford leading off the game with a single before Randy Arozarena laced a double into the left-center-field gap. But center fielder Jose Siri got to it quickly and helped execute a perfect relay with shortstop Zach Neto firing home to get Crawford at the plate as he tried to score from first. Neto’s throw home registered at 97.3, per Statcast.
Detmers settled down to retire the next eight batters, including five via strikeouts, but ran into trouble again in the fourth. He gave up consecutive singles to Arozarena and Dominic Canzone before he gave up a three-run homer to Raleigh on a 1-1 slider down and away.
Detmers pitched around a two-out single and a stolen base later in the inning, as well as a leadoff single in the fifth and a one-out walk in the sixth. But he finished his outing on a strikeout on his 95th pitch, just one start after he threw a career-high 112 pitches in a six-inning effort in Boston on Tuesday.