ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Angels started hot, but couldn’t keep up with the Rays in a 6-4 loss Tuesday night in the penultimate game of the six-game homestand. 

Mike Trout hit a two-run home run in the first and put the Angels ahead 2-0. Trout’s third homer in as many games and sixth this season keeps him tied atop the American League home run leaders, tied with Boston’s Tyler O’Neil. 

Trout’s homer would reveal the Angels newest home run celebration, as well as the last lead the Halos would have all evening.

”When they’ve been making mistakes he’s been making making them pay,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “He’s swinging the bat well.”

Patrick Sandoval pitched five innings and finished with six hits and four earned runs.

”He couldn’t command the fastball,” Washington said. “He didn’t have any consistency, it was all speed but he stayed in there.”

The Rays quickly responded to Trout’s home run in the second inning, first with a double by Jose Siri that scored Curtis Mead, which needed a video review to overturn a play at the plate.

The ensuing batter, Jose Caballero hit a single off Sandoval to bring home Siri and even the score, 2-2. 

”Even though I didn’t throw my best stuff today, I went through five, and a questionable call at first, it could’ve been a different outing,” Sandoval said about his night on the mound.

Sandoval was referring to his balk in the fourth inning that set up the lead change in the fourth inning that the Halos wouldn’t recover from.

Caballero and Siri were involved in another scoring play when Caballero’s line drive double to left scored Siri and gave Tampa Bay its first lead of the night, 3-2. 

Three batters later, a Harold Ramirez single brought Caballero home to double the Rays lead to 4-2. 

The Angels would cut the Rays deficit in half, 4-3 following a fielding error from Caballero in the bottom of the fourth.

Isaac Paredes seemed to put the game on ice for Tampa Bay with a solo homer in the top of the seventh to put the Rays ahead 5-3. The Rays added another run in the eighth after a Ramirez single brought Caballero home.

Trailing three runs in the ninth, the Halos got one back with a Luis Rengifo single which scored Aaron Hicks and cut into the deficit, 6-4, but it would prove to be too little, too late.

”There’s never any quit in those guys,” Washington said of his team’s performance.

The Angels return for the final game of the three-game series against the Rays Wednesday at 1:07 p.m.