ANAHEIM -- Reminded to take a deep breath and soak in all that was about to happen, Jake Rogers played nine innings Tuesday night at Angel Stadium in a game that he is not about to forget anytime soon.

The Tigers were unable to follow up on their success from a day earlier and fell, 6-1, to the Angels, but Rogers came away with both his first Major League hit and RBI on a single in the seventh inning. He added another single in the ninth inning.

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Barely 24 hours after he found out he was headed to the Major Leagues for the first time, the Tigers’ No. 7 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, admitted that it all has been a bit of a chaotic experience, even though it was the day he had been pursuing for some time now.

“I just took it all in,” Rogers said. “I can’t really point out one thing. I just took it all in, took the advice and just took some deep breaths and got after it.”

Rogers arrived in Southern California on Tuesday afternoon following a flight from Detroit and found out he would be in the starting lineup, batting eighth, while catching for starter Drew VerHagen.

It was far from a sharp outing for VerHagen, but he was able to wiggle out of jams until his day ended when an Andrelton Simmons popup in shallow left-center field fell untouched between left fielder Victor Reyes, center fielder JaCoby Jones and shortstop Jordy Mercer. A run scored on the play as the Angels took a 4-0 lead.

“That was pretty frustrating,” VerHagen said. “Even that at-bat, that was a battle. He was fouling pitches off, I make my pitch and it just somehow found a hole. That is always frustrating.”

Rogers already had his first two at-bats by then, flying out to deep center field in the third inning and grounding out to third base in the fifth. That was followed by an error when he was unable to handle a popup in front of the plate by Luis Rengifo in the sixth. Two batters later, Rengifo scored.

“That needs to get caught,” Rogers said, refusing to play off the error as just one of those things that can happen from time to time. “I didn’t get behind it and took a bad route and it beat me.”

Rogers recovered in style, though. His single in the seventh rolled through the hole at shortstop to score Reyes who had doubled in front of him.

“It was fun watching him,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “You can tell he is really confident behind the plate. He hit a bullet out there which was really cool to get a first hit and first RBI and then another hit. There are a few things we’re working to iron out since he hasn’t been up here before.”

Gardenhire saw that Rogers did not wait for reliever Nick Ramirez to reach the mound in the fifth inning before returning to his spot behind the plate. He also wants Rogers to keep his eye on the dugout more in case the coaches have information to pass on. But Gardenhire labeled those small quirks that can easily be ironed out.

A two-hit debut will help him to move forward quicker.

“Yeah, that was awesome,” Rogers said. “I want to drive in runs, put the ball in play and hit a barrel or two so to get that hit and RBI; just many more to come. I’m ready to get going and keep going.”

VerHagen (1-2) threw a season-high 84 pitches in his second start, giving up four runs (three earned) on 10 hits over 4 2/3 innings with one walk and two strikeouts. The Tigers managed just four hits and no runs over six innings against Angels starter Griffin Canning (4-6).