Mike Trout and the Angels are thrown a curve in 2-1 loss to the Astros

It came in at the same angle like so many had before, and dropped down to the same level so many had before. Finally, in Friday’s ninth inning at Minute Maid Park, Mike Trout resisted Lance McCullers’ crooked curveball and worked a walk.

But by then it was too late. Trout had already swung and missed at five curves from McCullers on the night, including three times to conclude at-bats. It was the first time the 24-year-old center fielder struck out three times in the same game all season.

“He threw me curveballs all night,” Trout said. “I just wasn’t picking them up.”

Trout saw a dozen curveballs in all, the Angels some 60. Before they had made an out in the first inning, the Angels had two runners in scoring position. Despite their standing, those runners could not score, and they could not get another man to third until the ninth.

Stymied by the 22-year-old right-hander’s vicious stuff, the Angels had their season-high winning streak end at six games and suffered a 2-1 defeat to the Houston Astros.

“Our best chance was in the first inning,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said. “We couldn’t get a couple home.”

In his starting role, Angels starter Matt Shoemaker did what he has steadily done for months now: controlled counts. He walked only one Astro and struck out five. The lone walk, the lone moment he said he would regret, was to the last batter he faced: Houston catcher Jason Castro.

Earlier in that seventh-inning at-bat, as Carlos Gomez stood at third with two outs, third-base umpire Scott Barry signaled a balk when Shoemaker tried to pick off Gomez. Gomez came jogging home to score a second run, and Scioscia bolted out of the dugout in protest.

Scioscia spoke animatedly for a few seconds, and the ruling was overruled. Barry recognized Shoemaker had stepped off the rubber before the attempt, not after. Then came the walk, and then Joe Smith entered in relief of Shoemaker.

Smith had allowed two runs over the last 20 days. Both times, that run scored on his first pitch or before it. First was a home run off the bat of Tampa Bay’s Brad Miller, then the extraordinary balk in Baltimore, when Smith dropped the ball while on the mound, allowing the tying run to score.

One Angels streak continued Friday night: Smith threw a first-pitch slider to George Springer, and Springer shot it to left for a run-scoring single.

In the first inning, Shoemaker yielded a single to Houston’s second hitter, and then a deep fly ball to their third, Jose Altuve. It traveled nearly 400 feet before Trout tracked it down short of the wall. Trout opted against diving for a similar drive by Preston Tucker in the fifth inning, which then went for a triple.

“It was kind of in-between,” Trout said. “If I had dove, I would have face-planted into that wall.”

When Castro followed with a single, Houston scored the game’s first run.

There were early indications Shoemaker was not as sharp. He hit Gomez in the back with a 3-0 fastball in the second inning. Still, the lowest Shoemaker’s earned-run average had reached this season was 3.93. It dipped below that for one moment Friday night, just before Tucker hit the triple. It finished the night at 3.99, still emblematic of how far he has come since his dreadful beginning to the season, when he carried a 9.12 ERA after six starts.

Trout’s ninth-inning walk, preceded by one by Kole Calhoun, keyed the Angels’ ninth-inning rally and ended McCullers’ night.

Facing Will Harris, Albert Pujols lofted a ball to right field for the first out. Daniel Nava grounded a ball up the middle, bound for center field, but Altuve snagged it and threw to second for the second out. Andrelton Simmons stepped up and slapped the first pitch into left field for a run-scoring single, but Ji-Man Choi struck out swinging after battling Harris for five pitches.

The Angels were left to lament what Thursday’s scheduled off day did to their stream of torrid hitting.

“We were starting to feel good at the plate,” Trout said. “We were getting hotter.”

pedro.moura@latimes.com

Twitter: @pedromoura