Andrew Heaney’s fastball hit hard as Angels fall at Seattle

Andrew Heaney’s favorite place is a raised fastball.

On Friday, the Seattle Mariners kept beating her out of the yard.

In the 7-4 win of the Mariners against the Angels at T-Mobile Park, the Mariners hit three home runs against the Angels’ left-hander. It was a fastball every three times, but not outside the zone that was hammered over the wall.

“I can’t tell you he didn’t throw it well tonight because I thought it was him,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said of Heaney. “You met some homers in some of the pitches that I thought were decent pitches.”

Those were the fine margins that condemned the Angels (12-12) to fail at the start on Friday.

Albert Pujols saw loud flyballs die on the track twice. Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon have been called to border strikes in consecutive bats in sixth rank. Dylan Moore scored a major insurance run for the Mariners in the next half-inning after taking a leadoff walk and advancing around the bases on a wild field, stolen base and throwing mistake against catcher Kurt Suzuki.

Here are three observations from Friday:

Heaney was chasing

Heaney has always believed that “Solo Homers can’t beat you,” he said on Friday. “The only caveat would be that you can’t go without a solo homer every inning you line up.”

The Mariners didn’t go deep every time in Heaney’s 31/3 inning four-run start. But they were getting closer.

After taking the lead twice in a Rendon RBI double and Jared Walsh sacrificial fly, Mariners lead hitter Mitch Haniger responded immediately with a 434-foot homerun to dead center when Heaney tried to climb the ladder with a 94-mile Four seater.

Moore did damage on a similar pitch to lead the second and swung onto another raised fastball to get a solo shot to the left that gave the result.

Moore drove in another run with an RBI single in the third before Tom Murphy hit Heaney deep in the fourth inning. Once again, Heaney tried to use a high fastball for his put-away field with 0-2.

But Murphy drove it the other way and cleared the wall in the center right to bring the Mariners forward for good.

Murphy’s Homer was the one who pissed off Heaney the most.

“There is no reason that should be anywhere near the strike zone,” he said.

It would be the final blow to Heaney on Friday, the fifth time in the Angels’ last eight games that their starter failed to complete the fourth.

Ohtani meets Homer

The Shohei Ohtani of Angels in the middle is greeted by teammate Mike Trout after Ohtani returns home in the third inning.

(Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)

Before the game, Maddon spoke at length about the pitcher-catcher relationship between Shohei Ohtani and Kurt Suzuki – a battery the manager will try to keep intact for now.

“It just looks like they’re somewhat on the same page,” Maddon said. “That doesn’t mean I would hesitate to say it [Max Stassi] back there [with Ohtani]. Leave it alone from now on. Suzuki, I tell you, the guy is totally committed to his mug. I love it.”

Ohtani, who finished second in the line-up as a proven batsman on Friday evening, also made an offensive contribution.

After struggling with the move in his first attack against Mariners starter Chris Flexen, Ohtani didn’t miss the off-speed pitch in the third and hit his eighth home run of the season on the right field.

Ohtani is now in second place in the MLB rankings, followed by JD Martinez of the Boston Red Sox.

Short hops

The Angels reinstated outfielder Juan Lagares from the injured list, but then selected him to triple A. Maddon declined to say if the Angels were one of the nine unnamed teams MLB announced they have reached the 85% threshold for COVID-19 vaccinations among animal I staff.