The Angels dropped their second game in a row to the Athletics. The final score was 7-2.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Angels Lose Another
31 Comments
Super Member
31 minutes ago
It’s like the Angels won the WS in sweeping the Dodgers and the rest of the season is just motions for the boys
Super Member
35 minutes ago
Brewers have won 14 in a row. Top of the ninth now, but they are losing 1-0. They got a batter on and next dude just failed to get a bunt down. Pat Murphy is frustrated as hell and visibly cussing up a storm muttering this, like the world is about to end.
thats the manager I want. Doesn’t care about what happened previously. You just better get your bunt down young man.
Editor
Super Member
1 hour ago
Good news:
Inland Empire saw another no-hit performance (over four innings) from its incipient starting pitching core. Ubaldo Soto with six Ks and 3 BBs to keep Modesto off the board.
After an excruciatingly bad first half, the 66ers are actually eyeing a playoff spot in the second half (the playoffs include the division winners from each half), largely due to improved pitching in recent weeks. Jordan, Gregory-Alford, Soto and Barrett Kent – all age 19-20 – form nearly a full rotation of watch-worthy prospects at the lowest full-season level.
Most of the 66ers lineup is built of age 23-25 players too old for the level, so one needs to take the second half surge a bit in that context, but recent arrival Hayden Alvarez is a genuine prospect, and the rotation is a sign of some hope on the horizon.
Less good news:
All of the more advanced affiliates lost last night, with another troubling outing by Chris Cortez – wildness, lots of walks, pitch inefficient, couldn’t finish the fourth inning. Denzer Guzman has also cooled off after a hot first week in AAA, and his almost 40% K rate verges on the unplayable. Dana was a bit wobblier than his line score showed, and Osmond was not sharp.
The silver lining remains with the 18-20 year olds on the farm. We can only hope they break the pattern and see continued success at the higher levels where promising teens have tended to wash out in the org.
Super Member
22 minutes ago
Munroe doesn’t look like he debuted. Did you and TBW say he’s heading to 1b? That is pretty easy to see once you see it. He definitely is big for 3b.
no pitchers of the draft class have debuted right? Not that I’m expecting anything this year.
Super Member
13 minutes ago
59 games below between 66ers and Pandas . Yikes.
if they are just playing older organizational lifers, they should get some better than these.
Super Member
9 minutes ago
Klassen had a glitch today.
7 earned runs and one strikeout in 0.1 IP
Legend
2 hours ago
Charles with the brevity that this game deserves.
Author
Super Member
1 hour ago
I fell asleep and woke back up at about 11. Did what I could while exhausted.
Legend
15 minutes ago
You did a perfect summary of the game!
Trusted Member
5 hours ago
The A’s are just a better team than us right now. Good young core of Kurtz, Soderstrom, Langeliers, and add in lucky pick up Rooker is solid. Our offense is inconsistent, cause we strikeout too much. Maybe off season go after Padres Luis Arraez who is a FA? Put him at 2nd to replace Rengifo. We need contact hitters.
Trusted Member
2 hours ago
In almost every offensive category Arraez is quite a bit better. Neither one is awesome defensively. Arraez is making $14m/yr through end of this season. Rengifo is a shade less than $6m, I believe. Question is do we want to sign someone 2 to 2.5 times more than Rengifo or put that money elsewhere. I personally would want to see if there is a pitcher or 3B instead.
Last edited 2 hours ago by milehigh
Editor
Super Member
2 hours ago
Extreme contact / low power hitters on the Arraez model tend not to age well – or they have a more sudden drop off around age 30. I think it would be a mistake to sign him to a 3-5 yr contract and expect him to perform as he did in his mid-20s.
We honestly may be seeing the taper in his 2024-25 seasons. He’s barely a 1 WAR player at present, and he offers little defensive value to compensate for league-low soft contact.
Legend
1 hour ago
There is no value in Rengifo to extend him so we need to take his ABs and give to someone else that plays a better brand of baseball. Luis lacks fundamentals and baseball awareness. If his bat is not thumping, hard to mask the defensive limitations. Pretty sure you could find someone less than $6M AAV.
Editor
Super Member
2 hours ago
Wilson too. My wife suddenly wants to watch Angels-As games because she finds the cast of young rookies so compelling.
The As farm is also improving and is increasingly diversified. It’s going to be harder to keep pace in the short and medium term, because most of the Angels’ interesting prospects are 3-4 years away.
Legend
6 hours ago
What we are really seeing is how baseball is a game of inches and swings of momentum. Adell almost hit a grand slam in the first. He just missed it. Then the A’s come back and hit a 2 run HR in the bottom of the 1st. That’s a huge momentum swing.
The Angels play well against good teams. Why? Are they more focused on? Do they try harder? Or is it just random luck that hard hit balls actually left the yard or the infield?
The game of baseball is so fickle that luck definitely plays a part. HOT teams are just getting lucky with more regularity during a streak. Cold teams are not getting the breaks.
The Dodgers could have swept the Angels with a little luck or if the Angels had gotten a little less lucky.
Most MLB teams are within 15% of each other. Over 162 games the better teams play just enough better to win 10% of those 162 when a mediocre team loses then. Those 16 games separate the 75 win teams and the 91 win teams.
So the Angels randomly sweeping the Dodgers and then losing the next 2 to the A’s is just the randomness of baseball. A team can only be evaluated over the entire 162 game season. That is a large enough sample size to tell you what a team is and is not.
Last edited 6 hours ago by Fansince1971
Legend
6 hours ago
The A’s are up-and-coming. A young team with some excellent talent. Watch out for them in a couple of years. In the meantime they are way better than they were at the start of this season.
Super Member
5 hours ago
And we could have been headed in the same direction but we’re not because we didn’t trade our veteran players for younger players. Next year, we get to start over again and fill the holes with players who used to be good and are now cheap.
Legend
5 hours ago
That seems to be the playbook
Super Member
4 hours ago
Maybe other teams didn’t want the angels vets?
Super Member
3 hours ago
I’m pretty sure there was a market for Jansen, Ward, Detmers, Moncada, and Adell, if we were willing to move them. Rengifo was 50/50. There may not have been a market for Anderson. We were not willing to move them though unless someone was willing to overpay. Jansen, Moncada, Anderson, and Rengifo will all be gone after the season anyway. Ward will be gone after next year and Adell the following year. All of them will cost much more if you wish to retain them and, even you kept them all, they are a losing team. But at least we get to play meaningful games in August and September this year which according to Perry, will somehow make us better next year. I have been an angel fan since their inception when I was a kid and I will remain so, but there is nothing that would indicate that they are actually moving toward getting better. Arte seems pretty content with what they’re doing. After next year, he will likely replace Rendon with another marketing contract of a similar nature.
Super Member
4 hours ago
The A’s will trade some of these guys so they don’t have to pay them.
Super Member
1 hour ago
Many teams passed on jansen when he was a free agent. My guess is wanted to stay and the angels obliged since they have no closer.
Legend
57 minutes ago
Maybe. My suspicions are that the A’s will not limp into Las Vegas so my guess is that Kurtz, Wilson, Langeliers, Rooker will all be there when the first pitch has been thrown.
Legend
6 hours ago
Going to Church today but had to get this off my chest, Arturo must go.
Legend
12 hours ago
….but wait, we swept the Dodgers and announced our triumphant return to being relevant!
So riddle me this: which series really announced where the 2025 Angels are in their return to relevance: the White Sox series? The first two games of the A’s series? Or the series with the Dodgers?
Please will someone…anyone….post the cherry picked selection of minor league prospects that had great games yesterday – we need our “juice” quickly.
Bottom line: The blunt message to Perry:
Last edited 11 hours ago by Senator_John_Blutarsky
Trusted Member
10 hours ago
Angels are a long way from being relevant.
TL:DR (too long; don’t read) – they need players who can do fundamentals
First, they need pitchers who throw strikes when up 0-2 or 1-2. Stop nibbling so that the count goes to 3-2 and then needing to throw 2-3 more pitches before the batter makes an out or gets on base. This is partly why pitchers can’t make it out of the 5th. And the bullpen is worn out by the 2nd half of the season.
Second, they need hitters who can consistently make contact with man on 3rd and less than 2 outs (instead of striking out). Just. Make. Contact.
Third, they need to stop playing players out of position. Rengifo is terrible at 3rd. Every game he is at 3rd is a game that might be lost because he can’t make the play (even if it’s not ruled an error). Campero is not a RF.
Fourth, certain players (Ward, Rengifo, Campero) need to stop taking the extra base, only to get thrown out by a mile.
Fifth, management needs to make quick decisions.
Example #1: trade O’Hoppe. You cannot spend 4-5 years, allowing a player to learn how to play catcher in the majors (that’s what the minors are for). The longer O’Hoppe is the catcher, the more games will be lost due to his incompetence (remember Matt Thaiss, and his 2 catcher’s interference, in separate games being lost to the Red Sox). And, O’Hoppe is just an average hitter with slightly above average power.
Bad fielding, bad base running, bad pitching, bad situational hitting.
It’s just a mess that can’t be fixed, as long as you keep playing the same players who consistently contribute to being bad fielders, bad base running, bad pitching, bad situational hitting.
Legend
6 hours ago
Phil, wait, wait, wait, but didn’t we keep the gang together? 🙄
Super Member
5 hours ago
But other than that we’re ok?
Legend
3 hours ago
Hire Buttermaker as our new manager? He would eventually help us play in meaningful games by the early 2030’s.
https://x.com/Super70sSports/status/1665489180925763586
Super Member
12 hours ago
What a meaningful game.
Legend
13 hours ago
Hope the case is going well, Charles. Thanks for throwing this postgame out there tonight. Another listless effort by the road team. `
