Ricky Nolasco hammered for eight runs in Angels’ 10-0 loss to the Rangers

As Rougned Odor rounded third base in Friday’s second inning at Globe Life Park, Angels manager Mike Scioscia scaled the stairs in the Angels’ dugout. As Odor stomped on home plate to complete his home run, Scioscia signaled for a reliever to come in from the bullpen.

His starter, Ricky Nolasco, was done, drubbed for eight runs in the Rangers’ 10-0 trouncing of the Angels. Odor’s blast to right represented the coup de grace.

Some nights, a ballgame’s outcome is determined in the late innings, on a manager’s pinch-hitting decision or a particularly prescient play by an infielder. Other nights, it is established on the basis of one man’s simple struggles. Friday was one of those.

“Just a pretty terrible game,” Nolasco said. “Just a bad game.”

Nolasco had been so successful in his last two starts, unscored upon each time. His last time out, he turned in the club’s first complete game of the year.

Friday, he retired the first two Rangers he faced on a groundout and a called strikeout. Of the next dozen to bat, Nolasco set down only three — one of whom sacrificed himself with a bunt.

With two outs and two men on base in the first, Odor poked a run-scoring single into right. Jonathan Lucroy soon drove a two-run double into left field.

Jurickson Profar began the next inning with a single. After a bunt and a walk, Nolasco yielded another two-out single to allow a fourth run. Adrian Beltre ripped open the game with a three-run homer and prompted a visit from pitching coach Charles Nagy.

After Odor’s homer, right-hander Yusmeiro Petit entered, and the four Angels relievers who appeared were generally effective.

It was, of course, too late, for Nolasco had turned in his shortest start not related to an injury since Sept. 14, 2013, when he was still a Dodger.

“It’s one of those games where it’s so ugly that you just forget about it,” Nolasco said. “I just feel bad for putting a team down in such a big hole so early. You’re definitely not going to climb out of that hole against a guy like Cole Hamels.”

As Hamels plied his trade, inducing nine groundouts and striking out six, the Angels did not advance a man past first base all night. The closest they came to a run was the first inning, when Albert Pujols clubbed a drive about five feet short of a homer to center.

Otherwise, their offense was limited to an Andrelton Simmons walk, two Pujols singles, and a Martin Maldonado single. Three double plays meant the Angels sent up only one batter over the minimum all night.

“The double-play balls kind of put a damper in anything we had going,” right fielder Kole Calhoun said. “The biggest thing was getting ground balls when he needed them.”

The Angels described a Hamels they had seen before, flashing pinpoint control while delivering pitches near the inside corner. At 95 pitches through 72/3 innings, he might have been fit to finish the game, but, up so much, Rangers manager Jeff Banister called in his bullpen.

The Angels, too, treated it like a laugher. Scioscia began to remove his top players in the seventh: Simmons, Calhoun, Maldonado and Cameron Maybin.

Nolasco went into this season with a stated goal of vesting his team option for 2018. His contract contains a means for him to do so: All he has to do is throw 2021/3 innings and he is guaranteed $13 million more.

But his poor first half has rendered that feat nearly impossible. He has pitched neither well nor for long stretches, and he owns a 5.06 earned-run average in 1011/3 innings.

The Angels will play 70 games in the second half. If he pitches 14 times, he’ll have to average more than seven innings per start. No one has managed to reach that marker this year.

That’s a concern for a later date. Now, the Angels (44-46) are losers of four of five games, and they must win twice this weekend to avoid entering the All-Star break as a losing team.

“It’d be nice to win a series going into the break,” Calhoun said. “We have a chance to do that starting tomorrow.”

pedro.moura@latimes.com

Twitter: @pedromoura