Rookie left-hander Patrick Sandoval's best pitch is his changeup.

But he may have gone to it too many times against the Giants on Wednesday and it cost him in a 7-2 loss at Oracle Park that dropped the Angels to 8-17 on the year. Of Sandoval's 76 pitches, 21 were changeups, and critically, two were hit for home runs. Wilmer Flores connected on a 3-2 change for a three-run blast in the third and Austin Slater smacked a two-run shot on a 3-1 offering in the fourth.

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“The changeup is my best weapon,” Sandoval said. “I'm going to take my chances with that all day. I just didn't execute well. I fell behind in counts.”

Sandoval, making his 14th career appearance and 13th start, was looking for his first career win but came up empty-handed yet again. The left-hander went four innings, allowing five runs on six hits and two walks, and fell to 0-3 with a 5.40 ERA. The club also is off to its worst start through 25 games in franchise history.

“Our pitching in general, we just have to be more stingy overall,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said. “We got to start holding other teams down a little bit better. We need to start being able to hold small leads and small deficits to get where we want to be. But it's frustrating for everybody. But the thing you do is you show up tomorrow and you go about your business properly. And we need to pitch well to beat these guys tomorrow.”

Sandoval's command was a bit off and he wasn't fooling hitters, as he registered just five swings and misses, including three with the changeup. Sandoval said he didn’t have much feel for the changeup or slider, which made him rely on fastballs and saw him fall behind in too many counts.

He was hurt by a leadoff walk in the third from Slater and a two-out infield single from Evan Longoria that hit off third baseman Anthony Rendon's left wrist. Flores followed with a three-run homer to put the Angels in an early hole.

“The third inning I got out of sync,” Sandoval said. “I was moving too quick at times. Just fighting myself out there trying to find something to get back to normal and it just never clicked.”

In the fourth, he surrendered a one-out double to Brandon Crawford on a first-pitch curveball and was one out away from escaping the jam. But his 3-1 changeup to Slater was over the plate and Slater didn't miss it.

“The two-run homer is really what hurt,” Maddon said. “Had we just been able to keep it at three, it just presents a different attitude among the hitters as they're going up to the plate, as well as what their pitchers have to do on the other side. We just gave them too much of a cushion and we’ve been doing that way too often.”

Sandoval, though, didn’t get much help from the offense, as the Angels didn’t score until the sixth against veteran Johnny Cueto. Rendon, who appeared to be dealing with left wrist pain from Longoria's grounder, brought home a run with an RBI double down the left-field line to bring home the first run. Rendon, though, told Maddon his wrist is fine.

Albert Pujols followed with an RBI single to left, which gave him 2,086 career RBIs to tie him with Alex Rodriguez for the second most RBIs in history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Justin Upton came to the plate with the bases loaded and the Angels down by three runs but he struck out to see his slump fall to 1-for-37. The Giants tacked on two more runs in the seventh and the Angels never threatened from there.

“Cueto was good, that's the unfortunate part,” Maddon said. “... I mean, we got his pitch count up, we got him out and we needed to get on their bullpen. We did not.”