Anderson, Angels cruise through 4 frames before tough 5th

ARLINGTON -- Taylor Ward and Tyler Anderson set the Angels on the right path Saturday night, but the smooth road ended too soon in a 6-4 loss to the Rangers.

Ward mashed the game’s third pitch to the left-center-field wall for a leadoff homer, and Anderson retired the first 11 batters he faced, carrying a no-hitter into the fifth inning.

Then things got bumpy.

Anderson was cruising until he came out for the fifth. He had allowed only one baserunner, on a two-out walk in the fourth, and had rung up five strikeouts.

Then came a long inning for Anderson, a slog that could have been shorter -- and far less damaging to the Angels -- if not for an error by third baseman Anthony Rendon and a subsequent walk issued by Anderson. Both those Rangers hitters ended up scoring.

“I still felt pretty good in the fifth,” Anderson said. “My command wasn’t great ... obviously, the walk, and I got into some deeper counts there, but other than that, it was OK.”

Wyatt Langford led off the pivotal fifth for the Rangers and hit a sharp grounder that Rendon got in front of and got a glove on but ultimately couldn’t handle. He bobbled the ball as he moved to make the throw to first base, and by then, he had no chance of getting the speedy Langford.

“It all started when we didn’t catch that one ground ball, and then [Anderson] sort of lost it a little bit,” manager Ron Washington said.

Anderson walked the next hitter, scuffled through a nine-pitch strikeout and then gave up a pivotal two-run double to Ezequiel Duran before settling down for the final two outs of the fifth.

“He put it back together,” Washington said.

But it took Anderson 30 pitches to navigate through that inning, which turned out to be his last.

Take away the error or the walk, and Anderson probably would’ve pitched into the sixth inning. Instead, he was finished after five. Washington pulled him after he got the third out of the fifth with his 92nd pitch.

“He had a pretty good workload out there in that fifth inning,” Washington said. “He was doing a pretty good job, but they were working him pretty good, too. No, Anderson couldn’t come back out. He was done. The rest of those guys [in the bullpen] have to come out and do their job.”

The first of three Angels relievers, Hunter Strickland, did his job. He threw a scoreless sixth inning after the Angels regained the lead by manufacturing two runs in the top of that frame. But Washington didn’t want to overburden Strickland, who also pitched an inning the night before and has made 64 appearances this season.

“[Strickland] did what he had to do to get us through that inning,” Washington said. “The rest of those guys have to step up and come in and take us through the other innings.”

The “rest of those guys” were Victor Mederos, who allowed three runs in the seventh inning to take the loss, and Roansy Contreras, who gave up one run in the eighth.

The letdown in the bullpen overshadowed the Angels’ scrappy two-run top of the sixth. Tied 2-2 after Anderson’s long fifth, the Halos scratched out two more runs after Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel walked to start the inning. Neto stole second and scored on a wild pitch that was ball four to Schanuel. He took second on a throwing error on the same play, moved to third on a Rendon groundout and then scored on Mickey Moniak’s RBI single to center.