Back to Reality. Angels Lose Big in Sacramento.

August 15, 2025

Baseball is a fickle mistress. After a glorious 3 game sweep of the Dodgers, the Angels headed to Sacramento and promptly laid an egg against the Athletics.

Yusei Kikuchi only lasted 4 innings and was tagged for 4 runs. He walked 3 and gave up 2 HR while only getting 3 strikeouts. High early pitch counts have been an issue for him all season and tonight he threw 94 pitches to complete 4 frames.

Zach Neto’s mojo is still on a roll, however, and he did his best to bring the Angels back in this game. He notched his 20th HR of the season to bring the Angels to 4-3 in the top of the 5th.

Zach Neto pulls a homer down the left-field line onto the roof. It's his 20th of the year. He joins the 20/20 club, as he also has 21 stolen bases. #Angels down 4-3. pic.twitter.com/tbhwUVSdJ4
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) August 16, 2025

Unfortunately, Connor Brogdon had a rare horrible outing gave those 2 runs back in the bottom half of the frame. The A’s led 6-3 after 5 innings and extended the lead in the bottom of the 8th to 10-3. At that point the game was as good as done.

Angels lose 10-3 and fall back to 4 games under .500. Game 2 from Sacramento is tomorrow evening.

The Angels had won all previous 7 matchups against the A’s and are now 7-1 against our AL rival on the season.

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Super Member

Turk's Teeth

3 hours ago

Fourth rounder Jake Munroe (3B) has been assigned to the Inland Empire 66ers today, and is set to make his pro debut tonight.

The four collegiate position players from the top ten rounds of the 2025 Angels draft all have MiLB assignments now, with Munroe, Alford and Rodriguez each in low-A, and Isaiah Campbell in High-A at Tri-City. Only Gage Harrelson (16th round) and the UDFAs are without MiLB assignments at present.

Trusted Member

Phil

4 hours ago

For today’s game:
Rookie Luis Morales (#3 A’s prospect) has never faced the Angels, and is making his 2nd career start.
For 2025, he’s 0-0, 1.93 ERA

Anderson has faced the A’s 8 times, going 4-1, with 3.22 ERA.
For 2025, he’s 2-7, with ERA 4.63.

The most pitches Morales has thrown in a game during his brief MLB career was 57 (in his first start against Orioles).
Or, to put it another way, that’s the number of pitches Tyler Anderson will throw by the time he finishes the 2nd inning, if he makes it that far.

Legend

WallyChuckChili

4 hours ago

Monday Shaun Anderson gives up a HR to Ohtani and a HR to Muncy. He gives up 4 ERs and is yanked. I believe Perry DFA’D him right there even though it didn’t become official till the next day and the Angels preceded to win Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’s games. Yesterday Perry re-signed Shaun to a minor league contract and we lose.

Coincidence? I think not.

Editor

Super Member

Turk's Teeth

5 hours ago

After a rare loss yesterday, the DSL Angels won a tight game today, putting up 8 runs in the 10th in extra innings, and securing one of the 16 playoff spots in the 52 team league.

They still have a shot at taking their seven team division outright, though it would likely require them to win one or both of the final two regular season games.

Super Member

BannedInLA

6 hours ago

Tonight would be a good night for Tyler Anderson to pitch like it’s an even year.

Trout needs to start driving the ball. His slugging % is way too low.

The Angels simply must win these next two to maintain at least the pretense of being in the playoff hunt.

Legend

Eric_in_Portland

4 hours ago

Reply to BannedInLA

or to maintain at least the pretense of somehow getting to .500

Legend

FungoAle

4 hours ago

Reply to BannedInLA

or provide the A’s inspiration to get out of the cellar and to hand the Angels back-to back Minaisan last place finishes

Super Member

Roy Hobbs

8 hours ago

The A’s team that we look down on is 17-13 for their last 30 games, while we are 14-16. We are not the better team right now. Over the last 60 games they are 31-29 and we are 30-30. We are very consistent. The A’s were really bad prior to the last 60, but since then they are slightly better than we are. Since 2016, excepting the outlier last year and the Covid year, we have won between 72 and 80 games every year or 8 times in a row. We’re Charlie Brown, plain ole mediocre. We need to face the fact that keeping all the same players for next year will likely not produce different results. The dodgers by the way, are 1 game worse than we are since the break.

Legend

MarineLayer

9 hours ago

Perfect headline to describe the team. Sad they couldn’t sustain the momentum of recent series against the Doyers. I think Oakland’s future looks better than ours because they’ve cleared payroll and are actually rolling with the kids. Much better drafting too.

Last edited 9 hours ago by MarineLayer

Legend

FungoAle

3 hours ago

Reply to MarineLayer

Hard to know anything about future given the A’s and Angels owner but hard to argue that the Athletics young core of Langeliers, Wilson, Rooker and the Big Amish are better all around hitters than the Angels quartet of O’Hoppe, Neto, Adell and Schanny. I wish that was not the case but…

I am envious the A’s nabbed OF prospects Gavin Turley and Devin Taylor in the 2025 draft. Would be so welcomed here.

Legend

MarineLayer

58 minutes ago

Reply to FungoAle

Dont forget Kurtz, Soderstrom.

Trusted Member

Simba

9 hours ago

5 hits, 4 walks, 13 Ks

Super Member

BannedInLA

9 hours ago

We attended a concert at the OC fairgrounds last night but I obviously didn’t miss much.

Oh well, let’s nab the next two games.

I believe Soriano is going tonight.

Legend

DowningDude

9 hours ago

Reply to BannedInLA

Tyler Anderson. Guaranteed L

Super Member

BannedInLA

6 hours ago

Reply to DowningDude

The A’s top 3 are formidable.

Super Member

Brent

10 hours ago

It just bares repeating… this team is maddening.

Legend

DowningDude

9 hours ago

Reply to Brent

Let’s keep our clothes on …

Trusted Member

Kevin

12 hours ago

What is there to say? Swept Dodgers. Lost series before to Pirates, White Sox, Orioles. And now a beating by the A’s. It’s the way the season has gone.

Super Member

RexFregosi

12 hours ago

the monsoon-induced vision in the hot August Sonoran desert nights continues to be the same. Boone, Boone hoots the wise old desert burrow owl. Lightning strikes a saguaro; seconds later the thunder rumbles Framber, Framber. For 3b, I look to the rabbit, he said I Dont Know but go ask the roadrunner. I look to the roadrunner, he said I Dont Know but go ask the coyote, the quail. They too will say I Don’t Know. the snake hissed Giffy.

Frightened I jump awake. I get my coffee sit on my patio on look at my dog. He slowly lifts his head and chuckles Anthony Rendon, shakes his head and goes back to sleep.

Legend

steelgolf

9 hours ago

Reply to RexFregosi

How dare Anthony Rendon invade your dreams.

Super Member

RexFregosi

13 hours ago

The respite turned into a re-spiting: the universe just isn’t correct when the A’s beat us. 🤢

Legend

Eric_in_Portland

19 hours ago

gee, not many postgame comments.

Trusted Member

Phil

17 hours ago

Reply to Eric_in_Portland

Utter disappointment over how we could perform so poorly (hitting, pitching) against a last place team.

Just flat out got dominated Friday night against a supposedly inferior A’s team, who we were 7-0 against, and coming off 3-game sweep of the Dodgers.

1 step forward, 1 step back. Running to stand still (apologies to U2 band).

Looks like yet another year of being mired in mediocrity.

Trusted Member

milehigh

9 hours ago

Reply to Phil

Baseball is funny. While the A’s have a worse won/lost record, so far, the A’s top the Angels is most batting categories. The margin is slim is some cases but still better. Pitching is about the same between the two teams. Bad.

Beating a team 7 times in a row is pretty good. Expecting that to continue is a bit off. Hopefully we’ll be 8 and 1 after next games against A’s.