Angels Are Left Hanging

The spasms in his upper back and neck were so intense Saturday morning that Jarrod Washburn had trouble getting out of bed. There was little improvement by Sunday, so the Angel left-hander was given a shot of anti-inflammatory medication to go with his pregame treatment.

Two scoreless innings into Sunday’s 3-1 interleague loss to the Houston Astros, it was apparent to Angel coaches that Washburn had altered his mechanics to compensate for the spasms and would be risking an arm injury if he remained in the game.

Washburn was pulled, shifting a heavy burden to the Angel bullpen, but it was Houston starter Wade Miller who proved to be more of a pain in the neck for the Angels, who had the Astro right-hander on the ropes but failed to deliver a knockout blow before a sellout crowd of 41,590 in Minute Maid Park.

The Angels have lost five series in a row and 11 of their last 15 games.

A sagging offense has been the culprit in many of their recent defeats, but there was no shortage of run-scoring opportunities Sunday.

They had runners on first and third with no outs in the first inning and runners on second and third with one out in the second, and both times the Angels failed to score. They put two on with two outs in the fourth and loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth, and all they managed was a fluke run when Astro second baseman Jeff Kent, thinking Jeff Bagwell had not reached the first base bag, double-pumped before his late throw on Robb Quinlan’s routine grounder to allow an unearned run in the fifth.

The Angels went one for 11 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners, nine in the first five innings.

“Some early runs could have changed the complexion of the game,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “We just couldn’t cash in.”

Nor did they pack it in after Washburn’s departure. Matt Hensley, Kevin Gregg, Brendan Donnelly and Derrick Turnbow combined to throw six innings, limiting Houston to three runs and six hits, but the Astros bunched four hits during a two-run fifth and manufactured a run in the sixth on a single, a wild pitch, a long fly ball and Brad Ausmus’ successful suicide-squeeze.

Eric Bruntlett’s solo home run off Hensley pulled the Astros even, 1-1, in the fifth. Jose Vizcaino doubled, and Morgan Ensberg greeted Gregg with a run-scoring single for a 2-1 lead. Houston’s sixth-inning run came off Gregg.

The Angels threatened in the eighth when Quinlan singled and took third on pinch-hitter Tim Salmon’s two-out single off set-up man Brad Lidge. But Scioscia sent pinch-runner Josh Paul from first on a 2-and-2 pitch to David Eckstein, who took ball three, and Paul was thrown out by Ausmus to end the inning.

“I thought we had a chance to get some action,” Scioscia said. “It was important to stay aggressive, but it didn’t work out today.”

Neither Scioscia nor Washburn considered the upper-back and neck spasms serious enough for Washburn to miss his next start, but the fact Washburn has had spasms in his upper and lower back this season could be cause for concern.

“I assume I slept wrong because I woke up with it Saturday,” Washburn said. “I’ve had these before. Sometimes it’s in the upper back, sometimes it’s in the lower back. Usually, I get them the day after I pitch. This popped up the day before. I wasn’t able to be effective.”

With treatment, the spasms usually subside in two or three days, “so I don’t see any long-term effects with my spot in the rotation because of this,” said Washburn, who retired six of the seven batters he faced, allowing only a single in two innings. “I did my best to pitch through the pain, but there’s no reason to risk an arm injury.”

Miller, who mixes a 95-mph fastball with a tantalizingly slow, 78-mph curve, pitched through quite a bit of turbulence, especially in the first two innings.

With runners on the corners, the right-hander got Vladimir Guerrero to line into a double play and Garret Anderson to line out to end the first. He struck out Jose Molina and got Washburn to pop to short with runners on second and third to end the second. He finally settled down after the fifth, retiring the side in order in the sixth and seventh.

“You’ve got to be jacked up for his heater, and then he breaks off those curveballs,” Angel first baseman Darin Erstad said. “That makes it tough, especially when you haven’t seen him before. That’s some legitimate stuff.”