Reid Detmers recovered from a very poor showing last week and turned in his best performance of the season on the same Sunday morning that Garrett Whitlock did. That they had to face each other would prove unfortunate for the Angels.
Detmers maneuvered around a handful of baserunners to keep the Red Sox off the board in 6 of the 7 frames in which he pitched. Striking out 7 and walking 1, the solidity of his 3rd start season would be called into question by a lone two-run Justin Turner bomb, but the Angels bats were utterly unable to figure out a dealing Whitlock. The Red Sox righty matched and surpassed his Angels counterpart, holding the batters to just 3 hits and 1 run while finishing out the 7th.
The bats were utterly limp and the bases weren’t the Halos’ friend either. GIDPs plagued Zach Neto in the leadoff spot today, Brandon Drury was erased trying to steal 2nd early on and, more crucially, Brett Phillips was picked off 2nd in the 8th in a moderately higher-leverage situation. Only one hit was managed in the wake of Whitlock leaving.
The Angels drop the series, and their last chance to prevent a sweep comes tomorrow.
I love Shohei to death and would be happy if he chose to stay here but I’ve come to terms that him leaving would actually bring benefits which are hard to quantify.
He is the best, most valuable player ever but our failure to capitalize has created this weird high-pressure do-or-die energy around the team that is not normal in baseball and especially not in April, May etc. Losses that get forgotten for every other team in the league go viral and become memes for us.
If we can get 2 prospects in return, I think both sides would be better off long term. It would be a massive black eye on the franchise but maybe a necessary one to finally shed the loser reputation.
Barf. The only way to make me hate losing to the Sux more is losing to the Sux with socially acceptable steroid user and perpetual hair loss denier Justin Taylor.
I’m glad Reid Detmers looks like a real boy again. Wantz is back. Cool. Knew that would happen. Teppy is hurt, bummer. OK. Rendon looks like he will do his job over the course of the season as long as the little rubber band inside him doesn’t snap and his legs come off…. which will be Dravecky gruesome.
Bats are poop. This will probably not continue to be the case so I won’t act like it will be. Don’t care what Shohei or his mom is thinking. I’m a tiny tiny bit worried about what Zach Neto thinks. Is this a ploy to make him get rid of the “go ahead and blow it by me” leg kick? He was killing it in AA so you couldn’t talk him into it there, but let him spend a few days being overmatched in Boston and NY? Probably not, but that would be some Ku Fu Master level shit…. I bet The Shadow knows what’s up with Neto. Is Fletcher gonna join the Bees? Go on mental health leave? Go find lost pirate treasure with his older brother Josh Brolin and a coterie of unique friends? Can we bring up Trey Cabbage and send Lamb away yet since we know he won’t be much worse? Probably soon…..
I hate the Red Sox. Those uniforms are clown shit.
Justin Taylor Turner…. dog fart
I expect the “Looney Tunes” theme song to be on a continuous loop in Rendon’s head.
I would like to thank the Angels for losing………in 1 hour 55 minutes instead of 3 1/2 hours. I was able to get some things done around the house.
The pitch clock, 2023 MVP.
The commonality of the last 5 seasons is that there are significant stretches where the Angels pitch well and don’t score runs and then score runs but pitch poorly. Obviously these are things that greatly affect consistency and result in losing versus winning seasons.
I wonder what exactly leads to this. Is it mental or just bad luck? Some of it is the sport of baseball which inherently makes consistency difficult. But there seems to be something that is “off” with this team that I have trouble figuring out.
It’s the Ju Ju. Get a pile of people to constantly yell at a .500 bowl of white rice. Watch said bowl of rice drop to .425. Repeat. Fan is short for fanatic. Repeat. Find someone to blame for crap magic. Repeat. Why does everything always go wrong? Repeat. Blame dad.
I thought Scioscia was the problem in his final years, but nothing has changed since he left. I don’t know what it will take to turn things around, but we’re not seeing whatever that is.
Just hit a go ahead HR at Dodger Stadium
BYE!!!! 💪 💪 💪 would’ve been nice to have him behind Ohtani.
Best news I’ve heard all day..
“Hey kidz! I’m Cody! Betcha didn’t know I’m still alive! Heheheheh!”
GUEST WRECK!!!
Was listening to the game on SiriusXM, Boston feed. The announcers made a point of mentioning how lousy the Halos are at fundamentals, right after Urshela got picked off to end the eighth. They were seriously emphatic about it.
they can’t be very good analysts if they think Urshela got picked off.
Just to wallow – Brandon Marsh overtook Mike Trout in the WAR leaderboards today.
Only 14 games, but he’s leading the Phillies with a .378/.440/.756 slash, positive defensive metrics and top-ten WAR in the NL.
Not that I don’t see the merits of the trade for O’Hoppe, but Marsh *was* my hands-down favorite prospect of the Eppler era. Shame we couldn’t have both.
Really think he just needed a good batting coach to fix a couple things, and looks like the Phillies did just that.
Yes. I loved Marsh too. But I’m fine with that trade. O’Hoppe could be the starting catcher for a long time.
You don’t get players like O’Hoppe without being able to trade guys like Marsh.
I think of the trade as O’Hoppe and Renfroe for Marsh and that’s a big win for us.
The concerning thing is how we could never get Marsh right while we owned him. That’s a big fail for our organization.
You forgot we also gave up Junk, Elvis & Seminaris in the Renfroe trade. Do you still think it was worthwhile?
Addition by subtraction!
Harder logic for me to follow.
Both O’Hoppe and Marsh make league minimum – Renfroe was a distinct trade to fill a hole in part created by trading Marsh, and manning him in RF for a single season cost $12 million plus three SP/RPs that gave the Angels some injury depth.
Again, I understand the motivations behind the O’Hoppe trade, but it’s a tough pill to swallow seeing Marsh attain to his potential, see him outperform Renfroe, and do it at league minimum. (Angels could have pulled in a defensive catcher and late inning reliever at Renfroe’s cost.)
Might be time to build a bridge and get over it.
He ain’t coming back.
Get over it? What is this concept of which you speak?
I don’t care about Arturo’s money. At the end of the year Renfroe will outperform Marsh and we have an enormous upgrade over Stassi and hopefully O’Hoppe will be a star here for years to come.
If O’Hoppe proves himself to be an above average cather for the next 8 seasons, I won’t waste too much time complaining, frankly.
Catcher has been a unicorn for this franchise since….forever.
The issue for me with dealing Marsh was Quero is supposedly just a few years away from the MLB. If the “talent evaluators” in the front office don’t believe Quero has major league talent, you do the deal. Otherwise the franchise is better with Marsh and Quero.
Marsh seems destined to be a platoon player, hurts his overall impact. If O’Hoppe continues to blossom, I like the trade.
Why a platoon player? The Phillies have noted his improvements against LHP, something he worked on in the off-season (in the early going there are no observable negative splits), and are beginning to play him everyday, which he is rewarding with being their hottest bat at the moment:
https://phillysportsnetwork.com/2023/04/16/brandon-marsh-hot-streak/
As I said when Marsh was traded, I like who he was traded for, but wished the Angels built a different package for him.
Last year Phil’s had him sitting out against LH starters. Then they acquired Pache to be his complimentary LH piece in center. Hope Marsh hits his was through it. 4 more hits today.
In 12 plate appearances against LHP’s? Seems like a big enough ample size to me.
I love me some Marsh. I will worry about him being top 10 in WAR if he’s still there in September. Even then I won’t really worry all that much.
Didn’t they just trade for Pache as his eventual platoon mate?
Marsh was awful in 600 plate appearances for the Angels. I don’t think there is any chance he is putting that slash line up with the Angels. The change of scenery did him well, and O’Hoppe looks like an awesome pickup–win on both sides.
He put up almost 2 fWAR in his 583 PAs with the Angels, which is by no meaningful definition “awful” for a rookie.
If it only took the Phillies some video analysis to tweak his batting stance and correct him within a month of acquisition, that’s on the Angels, not Marsh.
He’s been a 137 OPS+ player since the Phillies acquired him. 55 games, approaching 200 PAs at this point, enough for a stable sample, esp. when considering the improvement in barrels, hard contact and exit velocities. He looks like the player he was in the minors, when at full health.
I have run out of negative words to describe the Angels pitching/batting/managerial staff. That group along with the FO have kept the team in a death spiral for a decade.
I don’t know where you’re looking, but baseball reference has him at .9 WAR with the angels. That’s awful
fwar = fangraphs
Let’s check in when he doesn’t have a BABIP of .423 and see if the team has opted not to use his platoon mate they traded for
I love Marsh and hope he continues to do well. But leaving out how fortunate he has been does, in fact, seem a bit like some intentional wallowing. Brian Anderson was MVP of the league for a week until the balls stopped dropping.
I was hoping for a surprise W by not watching most of the game, but saw this post. Are we already headed down hill ? This is going to be one long miserable season. Angels must be cursed.
“I was hoping for a surprise W by not watching most of the game” – that is often my strategy too 😀
I feel we the Opposite Rays. Everyone’s always like how do the Rays always win with the players they have; whatever it takes to win they figure it out. Meanwhile everyone’s always like how do the Angels always lose with the players the have; whatever it takes to lose they seem to figure it out.
Today it was the waste a pitching gem via base running gaffes variety.
After getting swept by the Rays the Red Sox must’ve been like oh sweet we got the Opposite Rays coming up, perfect time to right the ship
The Rays have a nameless and faceless team.
Nobody can figure out why and how they win……at least during the regular season.
Top three of the lineup going 0-12 surely didn’t help.
My friend just texted “angels swept wtf. They suck”
I reply it’s a 4 game series so not technically swept yet.
“Oh so sweep tomorrow then”
No, Ohtani pitches tomorrow
“Oh he pitches tomorrow sweet.. 8 am wtf”
Sign of a good team you might eek out a victory to stop a 4 game sweep bc you can roll out Ohtani
Sign of a good team would be Ohtani pitching tomorrow for the series win not to avoid a sweep.
OR….. We again “figure out a way to lose.”
I am beginning to see Sunday, October 1st later this year. It’s the last game of the season, and a sold out crowd at the Big A is on hand to say goodbye to Shohei Ohtani. There is a “Sayonara Ohtani” bobblehead giveaway that depicts him bowing with his cap reverently in his hand.
Ohtani is relieved that he can finally stop telling reporters who for months have been relentlessly asking about his future plans that he is an Angel now and that is all that matters to him at this moment.
Fly away, sweet unicorn, fly away and be happy.
Fly, nah, he will just drive up the 5 to Dodger Stadium, he looks great in red, but blue is cool too.
here’s another way to look at it. If we maintain this 8 games lost pace we’d finish 154-8. That’d be pretty good.
😂
If the last game of the season is Ohtani’s last game as Angel, then someone will have royally screwed up by not trading him before the deadline.
Someone already screwed up by not trading Ohtani this off-season. A whole year of Ohtani is worth more than half a year.
The real screw up was not trading him last July. Have you seen anyone here who is going to be like “I’m glad I got to see Ohtani for those eight extra weeks while the team floundered even lower in 2022 instead of getting a pile of good prospects for him” in say 2025? I don’t.
Huge mistake under the circumstances. Agree completely.
If that bullshit happens…screw Shohei and his mom…and screw the unicorn he flew in on.
All is lost. Let’s trade him.
Ward could have made a difference today at the top of the lineup
Scoreboard Ward, let’s hope he pops one tomorrow
Nope. He needed the rest.
He wasn’t gonna single-handedly win the game..
Listless game from most everyone today. Players seem tired from all the time changes of the games. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the only player who played well, was their starting pitcher.
I do like the commitment to having Neto play everyday, and having him get most ABs consistently as possible. Significantly different from the old days where a highly-touted rookie comes up and he sits on the bench. Despite his 0-fer so far, I hope Nevin continues to play him everyday.
Gotta commit to Neto for a stretch, agree.
I think he’s looked good at the plate and in the field. He’s turned four double-plays in two games, including three today.
He took some tough pitches yesterday, but he hasn’t expanded the zone or looked silly. His fifth inning strikeout yesterday was on a called strike pitch 3-4 inches outside the zone – the ump got it wrong. His final lineout today was the second hardest hit ball in today’s game.
Those are the 0-for-8 stretches that a good manager looks at and says ‘tough luck’. A lot of time when someone says a player looked good despite the outcomes, there’s some bullshit in the milkshake, but I think it’s true of Neto these two games. I think the hits will come.
My thoughts exactly.
Less than 40 at bats is nothing. Defense does look nice, better than I expected, shows real adjustment after looking overmatched in ST. So heck yeah, let him play for a bit. He’s surrounded by big boys in the line up, there should be minimal extra pressure on him.
Completely agree. Does not look lost and overmatched at the plate at all. He looks way better than Fletch and even Rengifo. The hits are coming.
That lineout looked like a turning point to me. Before that he was pulling everything. I am expecting his hitting will start coming around soon.
So for any of you that have played baseball you know that losing is as infectious as winning.
When things go well, balls seem to find holes, bloop hits score runs, dribblers stay fair deep drives by the other team find mitts, tough balls are dug out of the dirt to keep the other team from scoring, umpires call strike 3 on the opponent rather than ball 4 etc. It should not be true but it is and that is why baseball players and fans tend to be superstitious.
The other side of the coin from that is what we are currently seeing with the Angels. Hard hit balls find mitts not holes, balls are not dug out resulting in errors, bad hops occur, the opposition gets the bloop hits and dribbler breaks and balls that might have been caught get that extra breath of wind resulting in a homerun not an out. The team finds a different way to lose each night.
Both winning and losing are infectious and it usually takes a breakout type of game to change the losing or a hard luck loss to stop the winning.
Hopefully the Angels can get things turned around sooner than later and start believing they are going to win as opposed to enduring different ways of losing.
Nevin and his overwhelming and infectious personality are just the right combo to get this team on the right track. 😁
Ha! He reminds me of Terry Collins for some reason.
Lol I hate Nevin so much. He’s an awful game manager and his personality seems worse than his baseball acumen.
They need to have a nice tri-tip BBQ and sit down together to watch Ghostbusters or something.
Or get into a couple big ol fights with the Sux and Yankees.
No breakdancing robot today……..also the A’s and Nats are terrible. Five losses to AL East teams again 😠 😢 💩
Reminded me of you
The troll tooty too
I don’t even think Reid’s last game was a “very poor showing”. He took a two-hit scoreless game against a powerful Toronto offense into the sixth inning.
He then basically had a shitty four minute nightmare stretch where a seeing-eye single, walk and errant slider (HBP) queued up a scenario where MLB’s hottest hitter and WAR leader drove home the point.
But 8 of the Angels’ 12 runs surrendered came from the bullpen. Detmers’ crappy sixth inning wasn’t much different than his third inning today, only today he had no offense behind him to reward his efforts.
Detmers, Sandy and Ohtani have been good. That is one thing that makes me feel positive about the future.
Anderson will also probably turn out to be ham sandwich good too. It won’t be a bad rotation as the year rolls on. we are just in a serious offensive BM the last few games, gotta snap out of it.
I was at that Jays game Turk and I agree… Detmers was at around 86 pitches and once the first two runners reached Nevin should have pulled him. Two RH power hitters were coming up with the latter being Chapman. I am convinced if Nevin had pulled him with only 2 on or even with the bases loaded instead of letting him pitch to Chapman that we would have won that game …
Maybe, but I almost always would have rather our starter face one more batter than the bullpen come in (at least these days).
The Angels aren’t going to win very many games where Trout, Ohtani and Renfroe collectively go 0-for-11.
But they absolutely cannot keep letting their below-replacement-level players like Brett Phillips and Matt Thaiss lose games for them, as they did today and yesterday. The team’s win expectancy nosedived after that Phillips’ pickoff.
Larry David has it right:
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm. It’s been a big problem around here.