Detmers Deals Again Against Bosox As Angels Finally Win

Wins have been few and far between for the Los Angeles Angels lately, but there’s always those Reid Detmers starts to look forward to. The left-hander submitted another gem last night, striking out nine and giving up just one hit as the Angels gave him some run support to earn a 6-1 win over the Boston Red Sox. 

Detmers now has a second-half ERA of 1.37, and he’s become one of the best stories in baseball if you don’t mind watching the rest of the Angels. 

“He was pretty amazing,” said manager Kurt Suzuki in a piece written by Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. “He attacked from the beginning and had all his off-speed working and kept them off-balance. But he didn't want to come out of that game.”

The Red Sox did a good job of driving up Detmers’ pitch count with at-bats that were basically a festival of foul balls, which resulted in an interesting conversation in the fifth as Detmers told his manager that he was going to go another inning. 

“It was pretty simple,” Detmers said. “I just pretty much told him I was going to pitch the sixth inning no matter what, and there was no argument. He said, ‘OK.’ I told him how I felt, and that was pretty much that.”

Detmers wound up throwing a career-high 112 pitches, probably in part because he knows better than to trust the Angels bullpen for too many innings. He said he was prepared for Boston’s approach, which has worked well with plenty of other pitchers. 

“That's kind of what they do,” Detmers said. “They've done it all year. And it's frustrating, but at the same time, my stuff felt really good and it is what it is. They did drive up my pitch count pretty good, but at the end of the day, you just got to keep competing and battling.”

Detmers gave up a single in the first to Wilyer Abreu, and he walked one batter and hit another. He didn’t seem to mind the high pitch count, especially given the results.

“I felt good,” Detmers said. “Body felt good, arm felt good. Honestly, I think the stuff kind of ticked up the last inning a little bit. But overall, it was really good.”

The weather had something to do with it. Boston isn’t Anaheim, especially in September, and on this particular night that worked to his advantage. 

“It was a cool night, he had an extra day and he looked strong,” Suzuki said. “And I went up to him trying to check his answer, and he was pretty confident that he was going to go out there, so I just let him go.”