Apparently before the game yesterday, Trout and Neto opened Pokemon card packs. They pulled a Charizard, and not only won, but hit home runs. Considering how superstitious MLB players are, this little bit of good luck seems to be a morale boost. And that thinking carried on to today. As the Angels offense, which has been so utterly terrible as of late, went off against White Sox pitching today.
But good hitting needs at least not garbage pitching. And today it was Walbert Urena on the mound for the start. He went 6 innings, giving up 1 run on 2 hits, striking out 5 and walking 3. A quality start. That is very nice.
Highlighted Recap
The White Sox scored first, getting a sac fly in the 2nd.
However, the Angels responded immediately, with a 3 run blast by Travis in the bottom of the 2nd.
Neto then brought in a run himself with an RBI triple!
The Blitz was on, and Mike trout used the POWER OF THE SUN to drive Neto in
The Angels threatened again in the 4th, and got a run thanks to Soler getting hit by pitch with the bases loaded
Jo was hit as well
The 7 runs of support was more than enough for our starter, as he made it through his 6 innings in a quality start.
However, it wasn’t all good news, as Travis hurt himself running out a ground ball and the Angels had to call on Rivero to catch the rest of the game.
Another bad thing was that the bullpen still needed outs, and this bullpen is not good. So of course Suter loads the bases and then Pomeranz gits a guy to bring one in.
Luckily, that was all the damage done, and he got the next batter out. Silseth pitched a scoreless 8th, and Neto hit a sac fly to get that run back.
Silseth pitched a scoreless 9th and the Angels won! First series win in a long, long time!
Upcoming
Angels go to Toronto this weekend after a day off tomorrow. The Canadiens may be distracted by the NHL playoffs, and Toronto is also under .500, so maybe this won’t go horribly.
Jo Adell’s stat line is troubling:
.258 / .298 / .351 / .649
2 doubles, 4 homers & 4 walks.
It’s great that the strike outs are down, but this is pretty anemic for a 220 pound RF’er.
He’ll warm up soon.
In his free agent season….
Gubi also noted his barrel rate is down from last year. For some reason he’s just not squaring up the ball.
They also noted that it was around this time last year that Jo turned it around and had a hot streak to the end of the season. So maybe he’s just a slow starter..
It was a bit under the radar, but Grayson Rodriguez made a promising rehab start in the ACL last night. 5 innings pitched, 72 pitches, 50 strikes. Struck out 7, walked none. Only surrendered one run.
While Manoah is the placeholder, I suspect Grayson will be the fifth pitcher in the rotation within a couple weeks.
Soriano, Detmers, Urena, Kochanowicz, Rodriguez soon. All pitchers aged 22-27.
We’ll take good news.
I see that Randazzo is still calling “base hit” on balls that are obviously extra bases off the bat. It drives me nuts that he does that lol
Good team win today. I’m starting to believe in Urena. I think Maddux should be a good coach for him.
The culprit during their recent swoon was not because they stopped hitting. It was because they stopped walking. There was a time when the team was leading the league in BBs, and it was common to see them average 5 or more a game. When they stopped walking, there was no traffic on the bases, and therefore less chances to score.
So it was good to see the team had 6 BBs today, with 4 of those from Neto and Soler. Hopefully the fact that Neto has 2 walks today, together with his 3 hits since yesterday, means he’s starting to see and track the ball better again, like he used to back in April. Now if he can only stop being a bonehead on the base paths.
If I squint hard enough I can see a decent team.
Alek Manoah called up. Perry is clueless.
It’ll be fun!
As Jurgen Prochnow said in Das Boot, “Now it gets psychological my friends.”
Deep pull.
The conclusion of that film is equally sad & brilliant.
Geez – at least give him one start before you trash him. He has had some success in the past. Crazy things can happen. Mickey Moniak is having some success so…maybe Maonaoh does a bit of something, and then we can listen to Blue Jays fans whine about their GM.
The organization doesn’t deserve any leeway for these dumpster dive reclamation projects. Especially ones who get shelled in A ball.
The “some success” was in 2022. Since then, he’s been nothing short of a disaster in both the majors AND the minors.
Urena pitched 6 innings and Suzuki played the better players. That is a good recipe for wins.
We are on pace for 64 wins (if you round up).
As of May 6, 2026 – Urena is our 2nd best starter.
Things can change quickly, of course, but, as of now:
1.) Soriano
2.) Urena
3.) Jack K
4.) Detmers
5.) Kikuchi (IL)
The Homegrown 4 !!! Let’s goooo
Last 3 starts, Walter and Jack are our two best. We need to get Soriano back on track.
Soriano had one mediocre start and one bad start. He gets more leeway from me.
If we can get Detmers to be more consistent and then add Bremner in 2028, we might have a pretty good rotation.
Definitely agree. Though I suspect Detmers is what he is. Mediocre. Which is fine, if Soriano, Urena and Bremner pitch to their potential.
Don’t give up on:
5. Grayson Rodriguez
(Angels control his contract for 4 years, and he’s on a rehab assignment.)
LT👼🏼U!
With my 2025 prospect crush, Walbert Urena, well on his way to graduating from prospect status, it’s time to pick my 2026 prospect crush.
Bremner is my true answer but he’s too obvious. Hmm… I’ll go Raudi Rodriguez! Honorable mention to Dana, who is no longer considered a prospect.
Raudi is a good one.
I’m really pulling for Chris Cortez and Joel Hurtado because I’ve interviewed them.
Not sure if you saw — we finally pulled the plug on the Cortez starter experiment and moved him to the AA bullpen.
Decent shot he makes his Angels debut this season!
Did not see that. Should have been done last year.
Snead and Klassen coming next. (Klassen has been struggling for length and consistency in AAA.)
If we are going to recycle Angels more prominent nicknames, should we call him The Kid or the Machine, Big Sexy or The Cowboy?
Wally Joyner never crossed my mind since I’ve been using Wally’s World for Urena. I feel shame. In my defense, I wasn’t alive during Joyner’s time as a California Angel.
That’s too bad, His rookie year to the Allstar break he was going HR for HR with Jose Canseco. I remember him hitting one in a game that got rained out so he lost it. It was fun and magic.
I ❤️ Silseth.
Funny how there was a brief discussion earlier about how we’d like to see more of Silseth.
Please explain to me how the Blitz was bad karma.
The Halos are a bad team and Perry is doing everything he can to make them even worse.
I just feel that taunting the baseball gods with celebrating a minor event will reign even more of their fury upon us.
I apologize and shouldn’t let my negative nature affect others.
Well, I like your Trash Panda logo. I have one of their hats.
I like the blitz, it’s fun and doesn’t come around that often. Would rather see the blitz and parry bot than poop bot or getting cy young pitched.
I’m happy you’re still participating the way this team has been playing.