Angels' rookie has wild debut

Just think of Thursday night's game like a home run ball hit by a visitor into the Wrigley Field bleachers, and you get an idea of what the Angels and pitcher Nick Adenhart would like to do with it:

Throw it back.

Adenhart's much-anticipated major league debut deteriorated into a walk on the wild side, setting the tone for the Angels' most unsightly game of the season, a 15-8 loss to the Oakland Athletics at Angel Stadium.

Adenhart, the team's top pitching prospect, didn't make it out of the third inning, giving up five runs, three hits and five walks, and the A's pummeled relievers Dustin Moseley and Darren O'Day for eight runs and eight hits in the fifth.

The A's amassed 20 hits, four each by Emil Brown and Jack Cust, to earn a split of the four-game series, book-ending a pair of routs -- they won, 14-2, Monday -- around crisp pitching efforts by the Angels' Joe Saunders and Ervin Santana.

Adenhart, starting on three days' rest for the first time in his career, hoped to carry that pitching momentum into Thursday, and he looked sharp in the first, retiring the side in order on 12 pitches.

But it all crumbled in the second, when the right-hander gave up a one-out single to Brown, walked the next four batters -- missing the strike zone by several feet with some pitches -- and gave up a two-run single to Kurt Suzuki to put the Angels in a 4-0 hole.

"There was not much feel out there," said Adenhart, 21. "I was a little numb. I didn't know how to make adjustments pitch to pitch. . . . I think it snowballed on me. You walk a guy, you start thinking too much, you try to do too much . . . I let myself get overwhelmed."

That Adenhart struggled with his control was not a shock. Though he went 4-0 with an 0.87 earned-run average in five starts for triple-A Salt Lake, Adenhart walked 15 batters in 31 innings.

But Manager Mike Scioscia saw enough to give Adenhart at least one more start, Tuesday night in Kansas City.

"It's not uncommon for a kid in his first start to try to do too much," Scioscia said. "He has a great arm, great stuff; we'll see him pitch better. It was one of those nights."

The kind that could shatter a kid's confidence?

"Any time you don't achieve, there's a chance your confidence will take a hit, but he knows he's better than he was tonight," Scioscia said. "He trusts his arm. He knows he can pitch."

Scioscia didn't think pitching on short rest was an issue.