Ureña deals, Meckler’s homer lifts Angels over Brewers

ANAHEIM — Squaring off against the National League Cy Young Award frontrunner, 22-year-old right-hander Walbert Ureña made sure to make his presence known. 

Ureña and Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski each possess high-octane fastballs, and they set the tone right away. Both pitchers started the game by striking out the side in 10 pitches.

But Ureña out-dueled Miziorowski by tossing six scoreless innings and only allowing three hits, walking three with seven strikeouts in the Angels’ 3-0 win over the Brewers on Sunday afternoon.

“Today might have been the best game he's pitched all year,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said.

Since getting called back up to the big leagues to join the Angels’ starting rotation on April 19, Ureña now has a 2.58 ERA in 18 starts. Before Sunday’s game, Ureña had the 10th-best ERA in baseball since the day he joined the rotation. 

“Just the maturity of his demeanor and his composure,” Suzuki said. “I mean, he could have went out there and got too amped up and balls could have been flying all over the place. But, he kept his composure. He was attacking the strike zone.”

Facing one of the best offenses in baseball, Ureña only allowed two base runners to reach scoring position. 

It was the same formula for Ureña to succeed as it has all season. The changeup was nasty. 

He threw his changeup 29 times and induced 17 swings on it; 11 of them were whiffs and five of them were put in play, but none were hit hard. 

Another key for Ureña in this one was his ability to fill up the strike zone. His command has been a problem at times, but Ureña did a good job of staying ahead in counts to limit walks and hard-hit balls. 

“Stay calm every time, especially this team is one of the best teams right now,” Ureña said of what was working for him. “I'm just trying to be calm and making pitches, and that's what I do.”

When Misiorowski is pitching, runs are extremely difficult to come by. His ERA was 1.58 and was striking out batters an an astronomical 40.6% clip.

Although he tossed seven innings and struck out 10 batters, Misiorowski gets the loss in this one because Wade Meckler tagged him for a two-run home run in the second inning. 

“Obviously, he's got probably the best fastball in the game, so you have to respect the heater at all times and just got a cutter out in front,” Meckler said.

It was only Meckler’s third home run of the season, but they have come off of Misiorowski, right-hander Jacob deGrom and right-hander Drew Rasmussen. That’s a combined nine All-Star Game selections and two Cy Young Awards. 

“I feel like guys like that who have kind of an outlier pitch, it simplifies the approach a little bit,” Meckler said. “You have to respect the single pitch, and you almost get more instinctual, I feel like.”

Sam Bachman Update

Right-hander Sam Bachman left the game in the eighth inning after throwing a pitch uncomfortably. Bachman said he’s just dealing with fatigue and that nothing actually hurts. 

He has not gotten any imaging done, and he said he will take it day by day.