Angels squander strong start from Ryan Johnson in loss to Mariners

SEATTLE — One step forward on the mound for the Angels, another step backward in the standings.

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The promising young career of Ryan Johnson continued to develop Monday night, but the reality of the last-place club behind him once again pushed that progress to the side in a 6-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park.

Johnson had been brilliant in his previous start against the Baltimore Orioles, pitching six one-hit, shutout innings to earn his first win of 2026. And on Monday, he pitched well again.

The 23-year-old right-hander, who is in his third major league stint of the season, took a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the fourth inning, but he was done in by a costly error by rookie third baseman Denzer Guzman that cracked the door open for the Mariners to take a 3-2 lead on a two-out single by Cal Raleigh.

“I thought R.J. pitched really good today,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “He got ahead, he threw a lot of strikes, first-pitch strikes, which is huge for him, and he really limited hard contact.”

The crucial play of the game was decidedly not hard contact.

In the fourth, Johnson gave up a leadoff single to Julio Rodríguez but erased that threat by inducing a double play off the bat of Canzone. He hit the next batter, Randy Arozarena, but he got what appeared to be an easy 46 mph ground ball to third base off the bat of Josh Naylor.

Guzman, who was playing third base for the 18th time this season and in his brief major league career, charged the ball but let it go under his glove into the shallow left field grass, allowing Arozarena to take third and Naylor to advance to second.

Johnson then allowed a two-run single to left field by last year’s American League MVP runner-up, Raleigh.

“I saw the ball spinning, I went to charge it, and that’s part of the game,” Guzman said through an interpreter. “Things happen.”

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Suzuki and Johnson both agreed that the ball had strange, knuckling action on it and that it was more an unlucky play than a lack of focus on Guzman’s part.

“It looked like a tough play,” Johnson said. “That spin on it is going to make things hard, and definitely where he was positioned, too. He just kind of hit it in a tough spot, so even if he fields it cleanly, I don’t even know where the runner was at. Could he have beat it out? I don’t know. Tough play, but that’s not the reason why I gave up runs. I still put guys on base, they still got hits, they still did their job as hitters.”

Johnson finished off five strong innings and gave up three runs (one earned) on four hits while striking out three and not walking a batter. He took the loss, but he lowered his ERA from 8.84 to 7.40.

But things unraveled in the sixth against left-handed reliever Mitch Farris. Farris gave up a leadoff home run to Dominic Canzone, issued a one-out walk to Josh Naylor, and then surrendered a towering two-out, two-run homer to Cole Young.

The Angels got off to a good start Monday. In the top of the first, leadoff hitter Zach Neto doubled off Mariners starter George Kirby and Guzman followed with an RBI single. Neto struck again in the third, blasting his team-leading 17th homer of the year, a solo shot to left center.

But that was it for the Angels’ offense. Jo Adell stranded two runners in the fourth by grounding into an inning-ending double play, and Josh Lowe was left on second base after doubling in the fifth and eighth innings. Oswald Peraza grounded into a double play to end the game with two runners on, as the Angels finished 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position.

“I feel like our at-bats were awesome,” Suzuki said. “All night, I felt like we were hitting the ball hard. A lot of hard contact tonight. Not a lot of swing and miss. We just couldn’t cash them in.

“To Kirby’s credit, when he got traffic on, he executed pitches. That’s what good pitchers do.”

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