Angels burned by former mate Joyce

PITTSBURGH — Angels catcher Carlos Perez shared a clubhouse with Matt Joyce for the majority of the 2015 season and saw him again on Saturday afternoon, this time in a Pirates uniform.

He noticed a different hitter.

“You can tell,” Perez said, in Spanish, after the Angels’ 8-7 loss at PNC Park. “He seems more focused, like he knows what he wants to do with each pitch. He has good balance.”

When Joyce was announced as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the seventh, with two on, two outs and the Pirates leading by only a couple of runs, Angels manager Mike Scioscia called on his lefty specialist, Greg Mahle, with partial hope that Pirates manager Clint Hurdle would counter with a right-handed hitter like Sean Rodriguez.

But Hurdle stuck with Joyce, who managed only one hit in 21 at-bats against left-handed pitchers last season. The Angels came in wanting to attack Joyce mostly with breaking balls, so Mahle threw back-to-back sliders and got ahead in the count, 1-2.

Then he dropped down to his lowest arm slot, flinging an 85-mph fastball …

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