With a career 9.96 ERA in 28 innings, including 12.83 ERA in 13 1/3 frames this season, right-hander Ryan Johnson finally displayed what made him such a highly regarded pitching prospect. The rookie turned in the best outing of his young career, allowing just one hit and one walk with eight strikeouts over six scoreless innings in a 5-1 win over the Orioles on Tuesday night at Angel Stadium. Johnson carried a no-hitter until the sixth inning before he gave up a one-out single to former Angels infielder Jeremiah Jackson on a first-pitch cutter. But he got ex-Angels outfielder Taylor Ward to promptly ground into a double play to end his night, as he faced just one over the minimum. “I feel great,” Johnson said with a big smile after his third career start. “You can't feel anything but great after that. That's exactly what I wanted to do.” The 23-year-old was coming off a rough start against the Athletics that saw him give up five runs over five innings on Thursday, but all five of those runs came in the opening frame. So he’s now starting to find his footing, with a streak of 10 straight scoreless innings. He lowered his ERA to 8.84 in 19 1/3 frames, picking up his first win of the season and the second of his career. “He picked up where he left off the last four innings in Sacramento when he shut them down,” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “He was kind of the same, he was attacking with the fastball, threw some good cutters, some sweepers, changeups, and I thought he was just executing pitches down in the zone and up when he had to be. So I thought he was great.” Johnson, a second-round pick out of Dallas Baptist University in 2024, surprisingly made the team out of the bullpen last year without ever pitching professionally. But he mostly scuffled, with a 7.36 ERA in 14 2/3 innings, and finished the year in the Minors.
