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ANAHEIM — It was clear immediately that Ryan Johnson was going to go right at the Seattle Mariners. Johnson didn’t throw a ball until the second inning, on his way to six strong innings and another statement about his place in the Angels’ rotation next season.
After pitching the Angels to a 2-1 victory over the Mariners on Tuesday night, Johnson has 2.03 ERA over his past eight starts. Josh Lowe provided the go-ahead run with a solo homer in the sixth.
Johnson, a 24-year-old right-hander, has flourished by relying on an 89 mph cutter and a sweeper, with only a sprinkling of 92 mph sinkers. The stuff isn’t eye-popping, but lately he’s shown he can put it where he wants it.
“That might be the best game he pitched this year, honestly,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “Everything was kind of playing up.
I thought he did great job of mixing and matching and things like that. … For the most part, RJ was on the attack the whole night.” His first 16 pitches of the game on Tuesday were strikes.
He retired the first six hitters in order, on 18 pitches. One of those pitches was rocketed back at him, hitting him in the left foot.
After the game, he was hobbling around the clubhouse, but he sa id he didn’t feel much pain when he was pitching. “I was feeling great going into it,” Johnson said.
“I really like where my stuff was at, attacking the zone, was feeling in control of what I was dealing. Even after I got hit, I still felt like I was in the zone and putting pitches where I wanted to.” By the time his night was over, Johnson had thrown 67 strikes among his 90 pitches.
He threw a first-pitch strike to 18 of the 25 batters he faced. He still had to work out of a few jams.
In the third, the Mariners loaded the bases on two infield hits and a hit batter, but Johnson got Dominic Canzone on a pop-up to escape. An inning later, he struck out Lazaro Montes to strand two runners.
Earlier this season, Johnson had outings that were going smoothly until a couple of baserunners got on, and then he would have trouble stopping the bleeding. Suzuki said he’s shown his development by improving in those spots.
“It’s the confidence, being up here a little bit now, having some some starts under his belt, being able to slow the game down and trust his stuff,” Suzuki said. “I think he’s believing in his stuff now.
I think that has a lot to do with it. You just see him get more comfortabl e on the mound.
He’s kind of a commanding presence on the mound. It’s been fun to watch.” The Mariners finally got to him in the sixth, when Canzone led off with a triple off the center field fence.
He scored on a Julio Rodríguez double. Johnson stranded Rodriguez to finish another quality start.
He hasn’t allowed more than three runs in a game since July. It was only the second time in Johnson’s 17 starts this season that he didn’t walk anyone.
The other was also against the Mariners, in June. Johnson was in line for a no-decision when he threw his final pitch of the game, but Lowe homered in the bottom of the inning to put the Angels ahead, 2-1.
Vaughn Grissom had driven in the first run of the game with a two-out double in the fifth.
The embattled bullpen protected the one-run lead over the final three innings, with left-hander Tayler Saucedo, right-hander José Fermin and right-hander Ryan Watson each working an inning to lock down the game.
While the Angels (58-93) have been relegated to the quest to avoid 100 losses – they need five more victories in their last 11 games – they can take some solace in the fact that they are helping to bury a Mariners team that has been one of b aseball’s biggest disappointments.
The Angels won the first two games of this three-game series.
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