Angels’ offensive woes deepen amid growing concerns
ANAHEIM — Perry Minasian is correct when he says that “good teams, teams that have been playoff teams in the past, go through stretches” like the brutal whiff-a-thon the Angels have been mired in for three weeks.
But it seemed like a false equivalence for the general manager to use San Diego’s recent four-game losing streak or Atlanta’s season-opening seven-game losing skid compared to the Angels’ recent struggles, as Minasian did this weekend.
The Braves have made the playoffs for seven straight years, a stretch that included two 100-win seasons and a World Series title in 2021. The Padres have made the playoffs in three of the past five years. Both teams’ rosters are filled with established veterans with proven track records.
In other words, they are everything these relatively young Angels, who lost a franchise-record 99 games last season and appear no closer to ending their 10-year playoff drought, are not.
The Angels lost 15 of 19 games entering Saturday night’s game against the Detroit Tigers, scoring just 46 runs, an average of 2.4 runs per game, and batting .194 with a .574 OPS, 198 strikeouts and 29 walks in 645 plate appearances during the stretch.
They’ve shown some power, ranking fifth in baseball with 44 homers, but they entered Saturday ranked last in on-base percentage (.268) and walks (67), second-to-last in average (.213) and 25th in strikeouts (296).
Only three players in a lineup that is in desperate need of left-handed-hitting pop – catcher Logan O’Hoppe (.280, nine homers, 15 RBIs), outfielder Jorge Soler (.243, six homers, 13 RBIs) and shortstop Zach Neto (.283, three homers, six RBIs in 12 games) – are having decent seasons.
And the Angels will have to play at least another week without their best hitter, Mike Trout, who was placed on the 10-day injured list on Friday because of a bone bruise in his left knee.
“Teams go through stretches where they don’t swing the bat well, and when you don’t swing the bat, you’re gonna have some numbers that aren’t flashy, right?” Minasian said. “We had some productive games early in the season where we swung the bat pretty good, so I’m hoping we can revert back.”
The offensive futility has left virtually no margin of error for a rotation that ranked 23rd in baseball with a 4.35 ERA entering Saturday and an extremely thin bullpen that ranked 29th with a 6.60 ERA, a figure that ballooned after Angels relievers were rocked for 17 runs in the final three innings of Thursday and Friday night losses to Detroit.
Despite all that ails these Angels, Minasian did not express a sense of urgency when asked if he felt compelled to make any trades to boost the last-place club.
“I’m not going off a month,” Minasian said. “We’re gonna roll with what we have.”
K-RATIONS
Manager Ron Washington continues to stress the importance of a two-strike approach, encouraging hitters to cut down their swings in an effort to lower their strikeout rates, but several players have struggled to grasp the concept.
“When you have guys who are capable of hitting the ball out of the park, it’s hard to tell them to cut their swings down, because they don’t know what that is,” Washington said. “Sometimes you gotta go a little off the plate to protect. Don’t leave it to the umpire. We say that every day, but when they walk in that box, they have to make the decision.”
Washington, 73, played most of his major-league career in the 1980s, long before power and patience took precedence over consistent contact, situational hitting and baserunning in the eyes of front-office executives and players.
“There’s this thing in this generation today, where everybody’s swinging the same way on every pitch,” Washington said. “So you’ve got to teach [a two-strike approach], and you have to keep repeating it, keep teaching it, and hopefully, it kicks in.
“But I don’t know if Jo Adell was ever told about a two-strike approach, because when he was in the minor leagues, he was a man amongst boys. I don’t think Kyren Paris ever had a two-strike approach, because where he was, he was the stuff, you know? These things sound simple, but to execute them, it’s not very simple.”
ALSO
The Angels selected the contract of veteran right-hander Touki Toussaint and recalled right-hander Michael Darrell-Hicks from Triple-A Salt Lake before Saturday’s game. Right-hander Garrett McDaniels was placed on the 15-day injured list because of biceps tendinitis, and left-hander Jake Eder was optioned to Salt Lake.
UP NEXT
Tigers (RHP Reese Olson, 3-2, 3.55 ERA) at Angels (RHP Jack Kochanowicz, 1-4, 5.20 ERA), Sunday, 1:07 p.m., FDSN West, 830 AM