Angels lose to Mariners despite Jo Adell’s game-tying, pinch-hit grand slam

SEATTLE — While Angels fans wait for the team to “learn how to win,” as Manager Ron Washington says frequently, they are getting plenty of experience in finding new ways to lose.

Jo Adell, who had hit a game-tying grand slam in the seventh, was at the plate in the ninth inning with another chance, this time with the Angels down a run.

He never even swung the bat, because Kevin Pillar took off too early trying to steal second base, and he was thrown out easily to end the Angels’ 5-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Friday night.

“At the end, we just made a bad decision,” Washington lamented. “He was trying to do the right thing, but it didn’t work out that way.”

That’s how this season has gone for the Angels (21-36). They are now 8-21 in games decided by one or two runs. In many of those games they’ve had some encouraging performances, like Adell becoming the first Angels player in 12 years to hit a pinch-hit grand slam, but they end up overshadowed by mistakes.

Even before Pillar’s baserunning mistake in the ninth, there was left-hander Matt Moore leaving a changeup over the middle of the plate in the eighth. Ty France (South Hills High) belted it out for a tie-breaking homer, putting the Mariners back on top after Adell’s homer had tied it.

And the game began with right-hander José Soriano allowing three runs in the first, continuing what has become a trend for him.

Soriano has allowed 25 runs in 52⅓ innings over 10 starts, but 20 of those runs have been scored in six innings.

“It’s a learning curve to him to learn how to get off to a good start and not let an inning get away,” Washington said. “And if it does get away, it’s one run or two runs and not three or four.”

Soriano collected himself, though. He gave up just one run over the next five innings. He was still down 4-0 because the Angels had managed just three hits in six innings against right-hander Bryan Woo, who now has a 1.30 ERA through five starts.

The Mariners pulled Woo after just 66 pitches, and that gave the Angels a chance against the Seattle bullpen.

They were able to load the bases with two outs when Washington summoned Adell from the bench.

Adell had been one of the pleasant surprises of the season’s first two months, seemingly getting his major league footing and becoming an everyday player. He was not in the lineup on Friday, though, because Washington decided he needed to “settle his mind down a little bit.” Adell had just one hit in his previous 32 at-bats with 15 strikeouts.

Adell said he had been working with the hitting coaches on better swing decisions. After he swung at a couple of pitches out of the zone from left-hander Tayler Saucedo, Adell called a timeout and refocused.

Saucedo then threw him a 2-and-2 hanging slider, and Adell lifted it over the left field fence. It was the Angels’ first pinch-hit grand slam since 2012. Alberto Callaspo hit that one, coincidentally also in Seattle.

Adell’s homer marked the first time anyone in the majors had hit a game-tying, pinch-hit grand slam since 2019.

“It was good,” Adell said. “It felt good to get that kind of swing off.”

That only tied the score, though, so the Angels still had more work to do. After Moore gave up the homer to France in the eighth, the Angels had the even tougher task of trying to at least tie the score in the ninth against hard-throwing Mariners closer Andrés Muñoz.

Willie Calhoun struck out. Pillar singled. Logan O’Hoppe struck out. That brought Adell back to the plate.

Adell took Muñoz’s first pitch for a strike. Pillar then took off before Muñoz even delivered the next pitch. Muñoz threw the ball to France at first, and he relayed the ball to second in time to nail Pillar.

The Angels have been caught stealing 22 times and they’ve made 27 outs on the bases – including another one just before Adell’s grand slam. The combined total of those leads the majors.

This was the second time this season that the last out of a one-run Angels loss was a player being caught trying to steal second. The other time, on April 24, it was Adell who was caught.

Not surprisingly, Adell said he understood Pillar’s attempt.

“The guy that they had out there in the ninth (Muñoz), he’s a guy that there’s not a lot of extra-base hits off that guy,” Adell said. “He was just trying to get in position for me to hit a single and put us in a position to score there. I know what the mindset was. We’re all in this trying to score runs and win. It is what it is. The aggressiveness was in the effort to win. So works for me.”