Angels fail in clutch

The Angels were a team of half measures Tuesday night.

Kelvim Escobar had a career-high 14 strikeouts but couldn’t make it past six innings because of a high pitch count.

Center fielder Gary Matthews Jr. made a spectacular diving catch, but a missed tag by third baseman Chone Figgins and an error by second baseman Erick Aybar led to two runs.

Casey Kotchman and Matthews homered, but the Angels left 12 runners on base and went one for nine with runners in scoring position against one of the worst pitching staffs in the National League.

The breakdowns resulted in a 5-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park that saddled the Angels with consecutive losses for the first time in nearly three weeks. Their lead over the Seattle Mariners in the American League West was sliced to three games, the slimmest margin since May 19.

Ken Griffey Jr. broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning with a sacrifice fly off reliever Dustin Moseley (4-1), who suffered his first major league defeat.

“I’ve got to come in and get that done,” said Moseley, who got into trouble after yielding singles to Scott Hatteberg and Brandon Phillips with one out. “I’ve got to get it done. And I didn’t get it done. It changes everything.”

Escobar struck out eight through the first three innings, with Edwin Encarnacion’s second-inning fly ball to center being the only out recorded in the field.

“He almost had every single pitch working for him tonight,” Angels catcher Mike Napoli said. “I mean, you could have called any pitch in any count.”

Cincinnati finally broke through during a three-run fourth in which Escobar said he regretted only one pitch -- a split-fingered fastball that he elevated to Josh Hamilton with runners on first and second and one out. Hamilton crushed the pitch down the right-field line for a run-scoring double to pull the Reds within 2-1.

Alex Gonzalez followed with a run-scoring grounder to shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who threw to Figgins in an attempt to get Hamilton going to third base.

But Hamilton slid around Figgins’ tag attempt and then scored on David Ross’ suicide squeeze to give Cincinnati a 3-2 lead.

Matthews tied the score in the fifth with his ninth homer, a solo shot to right-center off Bronson Arroyo, who gave up three runs in six innings to break a string of four consecutive starts in which he had given up at least six runs.

Escobar escaped a two-on, none-out jam in the fifth and finished with a flourish in the sixth, striking out two of three batters before leaving because he had thrown 116 pitches.

“Everything was working very good,” said Escobar, who recorded the most strikeouts by an Angels pitcher since Chuck Finley struck out 15 New York Yankees on May 23, 1995, in Anaheim. “I think I punched [out] guys with all my pitches.”

Escobar also recorded his second career hit -- the other coming in 2003 at Great American Ball Park -- with a third-inning single.

The Angels scored two runs in the inning, on Kotchman’s eighth homer and Figgins’ double to right-center, which extended his hitting streak to a season-high 11 games.

But the Angels failed to convert several other opportunities. Cabrera popped out to center with two men on to end the fourth and grounded out with two on to end the eighth.

Vladimir Guerrero, who is hitless in his last 13 at-bats, grounded out with two on to end the sixth.

“Our pitching staff definitely kept us in the game and kept it close,” said Kotchman, who finished a triple short of hitting for the cycle.

“We just weren’t able to string enough hits in a row.”

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ben.bolch@latimes.com