Balk helps Orioles rally past Angels, 3-2

The 2016 Angels are bound to approach 100 losses, and it stands to reason that certain centenary defeats will come in unusual fashion. The laws of randomness insist as much. But the way they succumbed Saturday at Camden Yards seemed like more than baseball adhering to order.

Joe Smith had his foot on the rubber and a baseball in his glove. Baltimore’s tying run stood at third base. Trusty shortstop Andrelton Simmons had ranged far into center field to secure the second out of the seventh inning, and Smith had replaced J.C. Ramirez to face Adam Jones.

Then, at the very moment Smith leaned into his first delivery, he dropped the baseball onto the dirt. Before he could pick it up, plate umpire Jordan Baker signaled for a balk and Jonathan Schoop started his trot home. Forty-three thousand fans cheered as Smith slumped and rested his head on the glove that jilted him.

“That was the most embarrassing moment I’ve ever had on a baseball field, and it was 100% my fault,” he said. “I just messed up.”

Smith cursed himself, walked Jones, and then escaped the inning. In the eighth, he yielded three singles to four batters as the Baltimore Orioles captured the lead. The Angels went down without a fight in the ninth, finalizing their 51st defeat of the season, 3-2.

In his second start since his major league return from a shoulder injury, Nick Tropeano supplied the kind of performance the team has been hoping he could muster. His pitches moved like a frequent flyer on a half-hour layover. The 25-year-old right-hander walked only one Oriole and struck out eight, eliciting a season-high 18 missed swings.

“I wasn’t nibbling as much,” Tropeano said. “I let the fielders do their thing.”

His lone misstep came after he fell into a 3-and-1 hole to Mark Trumbo in the second inning. He left a fastball over the middle and Trumbo punished it. The solo shot stood until the sixth.

Baltimore starter Yovani Gallardo held the Angels hitless through three innings, though he had issued three walks by then. After Mike Trout led off the fourth with a fly to right-center that two Orioles outfielders collided to catch, Albert Pujols followed by lifting a similar fly into short left field that Baltimore’s Hyun-Soo Kim could not reach. It went for a single, but he was stranded.

Only after Kole Calhoun, Trout and Pujols loaded the bases without an out in the sixth did Daniel Nava break through with a base hit to score two runs. The Angels were hitless in their remaining eight at-bats with runners in scoring position. They pushed a potential insurance run to third base in the seventh before Trout swung and missed a corner-hugging fastball to conclude the chance.

They went down in order in the ninth, stopping their streak of four consecutive victories and confirming their fates as also-rans.

The game went from good to bad so quickly. Simmons’ play, momentarily preserving a lead, was perhaps the most impressive by an Angel this season.

Pinch-hitter Matt Wieters popped a fastball into mid-center field, and Simmons took off running. He travelled 111 feet to catch it over his left shoulder four steps from Trout, who could not have reached it. Before the play, Simmons had scanned the outfield, as he does before each at-bat, and noticed how deep Trout stood. He said that factored into his chase.

“He keeps making one that outdoes each catch that he makes,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said.

But then there was lamentable balk, one that even Orioles Manager Buck Showalter lamented afterward.

“In the whole scheme of things, I’m all about fairness,” Showalter said, “What advantage was he trying to gain?”

As he iced his arm at his locker afterward, Smith did not attribute the slippage to the heightened humidity or the sport’s labyrinthine rule book. The setup man blamed only himself, 30 innings into what has become the worst season of his professional career.

“The most frustrating part is, with everything that’s happened this year, it’s hard to swallow,” Smith said. “Personally, it hasn’t been fun.”

pedro.moura@latimes.com

Twitter: @pedromoura