Jack Kochanowicz burned by a couple of pitches in Angels’ loss to Twins

MINNEAPOLIS — Jack Kochanowicz has been successful lately by throwing one pitch: a heavy sinker that opponents often beat into the ground, even when they know it is coming.

The rookie right-hander learned a lesson in the Angels’ 6-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.

The Twins were ready for his sinker, and even when he hit his spots, they hit them.

“Just feel like they had a really good approach for me today,” Kochanowicz said. “They cheated to the sinker a lot. They got to that pitch when I felt like I hit my spots. A little later on, I started using the four-seamer more to get them off that. Just got to be a little better recognizing that earlier next time.”

Kochanowicz gave up four runs in 5⅔ innings, coming one out and one run away from his sixth consecutive quality start.

The result was a loss that mathematically eliminated the Angels (60-86) from the postseason race, which has been a foregone conclusion for months. The Angels have missed the postseason for 10 straight seasons.

Their hope for ending that drought centers around their core of young players like Kochanowicz, a 23-year-old rookie who has shown potential with his recent strong work. He had a 2.84 ERA over his previous five games.

His sinker, which has been his best pitch, wasn’t working quite as well this time.

Matt Wallner took a sinker at the knees and hit a homer in the first inning. In the fourth, Brooks Lee took one at the bottom of the zone and lined it into the gap in left-center driving in two.

Asked about those two pitches in particular, Kochanowicz said: “There were a few pitches I felt like I made good pitches and they still hit them hard. That’s when I should know to make a change.”

Kochanowicz was still able to keep the Angels in the game, in part because he defused two jams with double plays. He’s induced 13 double plays in 44⅓ innings this season.

The Angels’ first three runs came on homers from Taylor Ward, Nolan Schanuel and Jordyn Adams.

Adams hit the first homer of his career, taking a 100 mph fastball from Jorge Alcala and drilling it over the center field fence.

The Angels had a chance for more in the first inning, when they loaded the bases. Eric Wagaman, making his first major league start, hit a pop-up to strand the runners.

Wagaman also made a costly mistake in at third base in the seventh. Wagaman, who has mostly played first in his career, had a miscommunication with catcher Matt Thaiss on a foul pop-up. The ball dropped, extending Christian Vazquez’s at-bat. He singled, and the Twins ended up scoring two insurance runs with two outs in the inning.

“We didn’t catch a pop-up that would have gotten us out of that inning,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “You never know what would have happened, but we at least would have tied it. Those little bitty things we’ve got to correct. That’s 101 baseball. When pop-up goes up, you gotta go get it. You can’t stop and let it fall. We got burned because of inexperience there.”

Washington was particularly frustrated by the mistake because the Angels made some noise in the ninth against Twins closer Jhoan Duran. The Angels scored a run on Schanuel’s third hit of the game, and there were runners at second and third when Michael Stefanic grounded out to end the game.

Brandon Drury left the game in the fifth inning with left hamstring tightness.