Jack Kochanowicz left Monday night’s game in the seventh inning after the first two batters reached base, and the Angels watched a 5-1 lead evaporate as the White Sox plated seven runs in the frame to win 8-7 in Chicago.
Kochanowicz had thrown six innings, allowing two earned runs on five hits and a walk while striking out five batters, lowering his season ERA to 3.09. The lead collapsed when an error by shortstop Zach Neto and a successful bunt single set off the seventh-inning rally that the Angels’ bullpen could not stop.
The damage continued after Kochanowicz exited: reliever Nick Sandlin allowed a single, hit a batter and surrendered a two-run double, and later in the inning Drew Pomeranz gave up a 2-2 fastball to Munetaka Murakami that left the park into the bullpen in right field. Miguel Vargas added an insurance run with a homer to left, completing the seven-run outburst that flipped the scoreboard.
The loss pushed the Angels deeper into a slide. Their bullpen ERA, already a glaring weakness, rose from 5.38 before the game to 5.70 after it, and the club has now lost eight of its last nine games. The final 8-7 score was the arithmetic of a starter who delivered and a relief corps that unraveled when it mattered most.
Chicago’s comeback erased an early stretch in which the Angels built their advantage: they began one inning with three hits, a walk and a hit by pitch to add two runs in the second, and Travis d’Arnaud later scored in the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Vaughn Grissom. Mike Trout doubled and later scored on a sacrifice fly in the first, helping establish the 5-1 edge the Angels carried into the seventh.
The context makes the defeat starker. Just over 24 hours before Monday night’s game, the Angels’ relief pitchers had allowed eight runs in 4 2/3 innings. Entering the night the bullpen’s 5.38 ERA was the third-worst in baseball; by the final out it had climbed again, underscoring that what looked like an isolated collapse is part of a pattern.
The tension is simple and immediate: Kochanowicz delivered six innings of two-run ball and left with his team ahead, but the bullpen, already taxed and statistically poor, turned a quality start into a loss. The seventh inning featured an error, a bunt single and a string of reliever mistakes that produced four runs in two innings of work and handed the White Sox the comeback.
For the la angels, the scoreboard shows a glaring divide between starting pitching and relief performance. The club’s record and the recent skid suggest this is no longer a short-term fluke; the bullpen’s continuing struggles have turned several good outings by starters into defeats. Unless the Angels find reliable late-inning arms, quality starts like Kochanowicz’s will keep falling short and the losing run will only grow.
