About Last Night: Padilla’s Velocity Goes Down, ERA Goes Up As Rangers Fall To Angels 5-2

ARLINGTON - The recipe was right for Rangers hitters to come alive on Monday night: a 21-year-old Los Angeles Angel making his third big-league start, likely handing off to the American League bullpen with the highest ERA.

The promise of an early 2-0 lead disappeared when young Sean O’Sullivan stubbornly refused to give in to Texas bats while Rangers veteran starter Vicente Padilla collapsed beneath the weight of five consecutive hits in a four-run sixth inning. LAA took the opener of the three-game series 5-2 before all of 16,985 at Rangers Ballpark.

“I’ll take the way we played tonight,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “We’ll put up some more runs.”

Padilla’s fastball rarely moved beyond 91 mph. “I don’t know if that was by design,” Washington said. “You know, speed ‘em up, slow ‘em down, speed ‘em up, slow ‘em down. I thought he was throwing the ball very well.”

Padilla said he couldn’t throw as hard as in his last start. Last Wednesday at Arizona, he was throwing in the low 90s in the early innings and actually picked it up to 95-96 at the finish, allowing one run in seven innings.

“It was one inning that took us out tonight,” Washington said, but Padilla had to wiggle free a few times early. He retired the first two batters in the fourth, then allowed three straight hits for LA’s first run and left two on by striking out Maicer Izturis looking. In the fifth, the Angels had two on and two out again before Torii Hunter struck out swinging.

The loss was Padilla’s first since the forgettable outing four weeks ago in New York that led to him being dangled on waivers.

Then there was the Angels’ rookie starter O’Sullivan, listed at 255 pounds, goes by the nickname “Taco.” While he did allow back-to-back home runs to David Murphy and Marlon Byrd in the third inning, he also escaped tight situations in the first and fifth. In the first, he struck out new Ranger Julio Borbon to leave the bases loaded. In the fifth, Ian Kinsler and Michael Young provided leadoff runners at first and second. But Murphy and Byrd, hitting third and fourth in the shaken-up order following Sunday night’s one-hit effort, followed with a first-pitch pop to second on an 86 mph fastball and a double play grounder. O’Sullivan said the homers made him bear down.

The youngster left after six innings, followed by Darren Oliver, Justin Speier and Brian Fuentes. They limited the Rangers to two singles.