Angels fall to Tampa Bay 4-0, putting both teams at .500

Baseball, in small samples, is always unpredictable. Extend a fragment a little further, though, and it all starts to make sense.

The Angels and Tampa Bay Rays each entered their four-game series this week with 23 wins and 23 losses. Fittingly, they each exited it with 25 wins and 25 losses. Two .500 teams played .500 baseball.

The Angels lost 4-0 on Thursday afternoon to seal the truism. They scored only nine runs in the series, and five of those were in the games’ first innings.

They threatened but managed nothing in Thursday’s first. To begin the game, Cameron Maybin began to walk back to the dugout on what he thought was a called third strike. The ball clearly passed through the strike zone. Somehow, plate umpire Andy Fletcher ruled it a ball.

When Maybin heard nothing, he returned to the batter’s box. He swung and missed the next pitch, then completed an uninterrupted walk back to the dugout.

Mike Trout hammered Rays starter Matt Andriese’s next offering for a double to left field. Andrelton Simmons soon drilled a single to right, and Trout executed a textbook turn around third base and went home. Right fielder Steven Souza delivered a perfect throw, and Trout was out by a step.

“They’ve scored some early runs off us,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Any time you can prevent that from happening, you come in energized in the dugout.”

In the bottom half of the inning, third baseman Luis Valbuena fumbled the first ball hit to him, by Rays leadoff man Corey Dickerson. Spot starter Daniel Wright struck out two of the next three men he faced, but let two more men reach to load the bases. Colby Rasmus then shot a two-run single to center field, 10 feet in front of Maybin, who was playing center field.

Trout was taking a half-day, serving as the Angels’ designated hitter while Albert Pujols rested.

The Angels put at least one man on base in each of the next three innings, but no one made it home. Kole Calhoun led off the fourth with a drive to the right-field wall. He tried for two bases and would’ve been out with another good throw from Souza. Instead, it was off line.

Valbuena made another defensive mistake to lead off the Rays’ half of the fourth, mishandling Souza’s one-hopper to third. This time, he was not charged with an error, and it didn’t cost the Angels any runs.

Wright yielded a leadoff double to Dickerson to begin the fifth. He made it only two more batters before rookie right-hander Keynan Middleton replaced him with one out and two men aboard.

“He did what we expected him to,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said of Wright, who is likely to make another start for the team Tuesday against Atlanta.

He replaced the injured Alex Meyer on Thursday, and Meyer cannot return until Wednesday.

Middleton had never before entered a major league game with men on base. In his first attempt to aid a teammate, he recorded a strikeout, issued a walk, and then gave up a bases-loaded ground-rule double to Rasmus.

Before the bottom of the sixth, the Angels removed Maybin and shifted several defenders around to accommodate his departure. He later revealed his right knee had been bothering him.

“It was a little sore from running around on this turf the last few days,” Maybin said. “It was kind of achy this morning. I got some treatment, felt better in the game. I just wasn’t quite used to running around.”

Rasmus hit his double to the deepest junction in the stadium. Maybin was several feet from the ball when it bounced off the warning track but felt his body limited his effort.

“I thought, if my knee would’ve felt better, that I could’ve run that ball down,” Maybin said.

With two out in the next half-inning, the Angels amassed two baserunners for Cliff Pennington, who took over Maybin’s leadoff spot. He worked the count to 3 and 2. One more ball, and Trout would bat as the potential tying run. Andriese fired a fastball down the middle. Pennington swung, missed, and slammed his helmet to the artificial turf.

The Angels didn’t generate another hit and loaded their bags for Miami in silence.

pedro.moura@latimes.com

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