ANAHEIM — Carson Fulmer delivered as he has been ever since the Angels gave him a shot at a spot in the rotation, but then Hans Crouse faltered.
Fulmer left the mound with a two-run lead in the sixth inning, but Crouse gave up a two-run homer and then the go-ahead run in the Angels’ 5-4 loss to the Oakland A’s on Friday night.
“We got out front,” Manager Ron Washington said. “We put four runs on the board (in the first inning). We just couldn’t put any more. It’s important that once you get out front, you got to keep grinding and keep getting after it. We just didn’t do that. … We got a four-run lead. We’re supposed to hold on to that.”
The lead was down to two when Washington gave the ball to Crouse, a 25-year-old Orange County native who had been one of the Angels’ feel-good stories this summer. After being plucked off the scrap heap, he posted a 1.76 ERA in his first 15 games with the Angels.
The Angels dangerous cleanup hitter, Brent Rooker, was coming to the plate with a runner at first. Crouse hung him a 2-and-1 slider, and Rooker belted it over the center field fence for his 25th homer of the season.
“He beat us,” Washington said. “He got us right there. Then the inning fell apart. Crouse has been doing the job for us. Tonight it just didn’t happen.”
Crouse then allowed each of the next three hitters to reach, pushing home the go-ahead run on a Seth Brown RBI single.
That spoiled Fulmer’s chances at picking up his first victory as a starter, even though he’s kept the team in the game in all three of his starts.
Fulmer has allowed six earned runs in 15 innings in three outings, making him the most successful of the handful of pitchers the Angels have auditioned in the rotation in the past six weeks.
“I’m thankful for the opportunity from the organization (to start),” Fulmer said. “I was drafted as a starter. I’m meant to be a starter, and that’s something that I’m hoping to establish here soon.”
Fulmer also had the benefit of a four-run lead before the second inning, thanks to a pair of two-run homers in the bottom of the first.
First was Taylor Ward, who snapped a month-long homer drought.
Ward was hit in the helmet by a pitch on June 30, and he immediately went into a slump that he admitted was at least partly because the incident changed his approach at the plate. Ward missed the last two months of last season after suffering multiple facial fractures the he was hit in the face.
He started to come around on Sunday. Ward is now 6 for 20 (.300) in his last five games.
“Hopefully he’s coming back because we need him to come back,” Washington said. “We’re missing some of our big thumpers and he’s one of them.”
A few batters later, Nolan Schanuel blasted a two-run homer, his ninth of the season. Schanuel has lifted his OPS each month, including an .866 mark in July.
The homer gave the Angels a 4-0 lead, but the offense dried up after that.
The Angels had another chance to score in the fifth, but Jo Adell was thrown out at the plate. Adell was trying to score from first on an Anthony Rendon double, but he had slowed up around second base to see if the ball was going to be caught.
Because Adell had to wait, the safe play for third base coach Eric Young Sr. would have been to just hold Adell, giving the Angels runners at second and third with one out.
“EY did what he felt he had to do,” Washington said. “I’m not going to question that. I think y’all saw the play. You can come up with your own opinion on that.”
After sweeping a three-game series against the A’s in late June, the Angels have dropped seven of the past eight meetings.
