'One pitch' a lone blemish for Canning in encouraging start

CLEVELAND -- It was the best start of right-hander Griffin Canning’s season so far, but it was marred by just one pitch.

Canning threw a season-high six strong innings against the Guardians, but gave up a two-run homer to José Ramírez with one out in the sixth that proved to be the difference in a 4-1 defeat on Sunday at Progressive Field. It was an otherwise solid performance from Canning, but he was stuck with the hard-luck loss.

“It was a tough at-bat there,” Canning said of the Ramírez homer. “But he’s a great hitter. He battled and fought off a lot of good pitches. So you tip your cap to him.”

Canning cruised through the first five innings on 62 pitches and opened the sixth by getting Estevan Florial to ground out. But he gave up a single to Andrés Giménez on a 1-0 changeup that brought Ramírez to the plate.

It led to an epic back-and-forth battle between Canning and Ramírez that included five foul balls before Ramírez connected on a 3-2 fastball for a go-ahead blast. It was located up and away, but Ramírez was still able to pull it to right field.

“I thought Canning did one heck of a job,” said manager Ron Washington. “Even the pitch that Ramírez hit was a pitch that was up and away and he was able to yank it back to right field. You have to give him credit because he’s a hell of a hitter.”

Canning was clearly frustrated by the homer and bent over near the mound as he saw it clear the fence. He said he believed the fastball was the right pitch, but Ramírez just got him.

“He was fouling off sliders and he was fouling off changeups,” Canning said. “So I just felt like I needed to show him something different.”

After the homer, he was visited at the mound by pitching coach Barry Enright and his next pitch was a curveball way out of the zone. But he recovered to get Josh Naylor to fly out and Will Brennan to line out to get through the inning.

“I thought Griff was outstanding and it really sucks for him to get a loss there,” said catcher Matt Thaiss. “It's tough. I think [Ramírez] is a top three hitter in the game. He’s really, really good from both sides of the plate. He knows what he's doing. You just have to keep battling with him and Griff did that for 10 pitches. He got us there and won that one.”

Despite taking the loss, it was still an encouraging outing from Canning, who fell to 1-4 with a 6.69 ERA in seven starts this year. He had previously allowed at least three runs in all of his starts outside of giving up two over 5 1/3 innings in a loss to the Rays on April 18.

He did a better job of getting ahead of hitters, throwing first-pitch strikes to 12 of the 23 batters he faced. His velocity has also been trending up in recent starts and his fastball was nearly a mile per hour harder than his season average. His four-seamer touched 95 mph, while he relied heavily on his slider and changeup, throwing them more often than his heater.

“He was on the attack,” Washington said. “The first two or three innings he was getting first-pitch strikes and he was spotting his breaking ball as well. He was in control of the game. It was one pitch. Just one pitch in the outing he gave us today turned it sour.”

Canning also didn’t get much help from the offense, as the Angels scored just one run despite going up against veteran Carlos Carrasco, who entered with a 6.59 ERA in six starts.

They saw the second inning end on a play at the plate, as Cole Tucker doubled off the right-field wall, but Thaiss was thrown out at home trying to score on the play. The throw beat Thaiss by a large margin but he nearly escaped the tag from Guardians catcher Bo Naylor. The Angels asked for a review but it was ultimately upheld and Thaiss said after the game he thought he was safe. But he knows the Angels need to get going offensively to support their pitchers.

“I feel like it’s been that way for a little bit, but we just need to keep coming in day in and day out and at some point those will start to fall for clutch hits,” Thaiss said. “It just wasn’t today.”