L.A. Reid

 

The Angels have evolved from their usual problem. Typically, the issue is that Mike Trout is playing really well and no one else is. Now, it's evolved to....Mike Trout, Tyler Anderson, Reid Detmers and Taylor Ward are playing well, and no one else is. Which is an improvement.

The Angels' rotation for the past few years has been horrifically inconsistent. They'll get one or two guys working, and then they'll lose other people or somebody'll start giving up too many runs. The good news is that the Angels have Tyler Anderson, Reid Detmers and Jose Soriano pitching well. Soriano had a great start today, he might be a rotation staple going forward. Anderson's more than making up for his weak 2023 with a 1.42 ERA in 4 starts. Detmers, though, is looking truly impressive, with a 3-0 record, a 1.19 ERA, 30 Ks a 0.975 WHIP. Detmers has struggled since his come-up, and has flirted with excellent material but has struggled to finish a season with something especially strong. This is the best Detmers has looked in a while, and the team would really appreciate it if he put in a full season of work this consistent.

I just think that it would be more appreciated, the work Detmers and Anderson have put in, if Patrick Sandoval and Griffin Canning were in any way holding it together this year. Canning has an 8.05 ERA right now. It's not as bad as Kyle Hendricks but it's not great. And the thing is, these guys have enough equity that it's easier to just wait for them to turn around. Which means the Angels have to stomach these poor starts and hope the offense can bail them out. 

And generally they can. Y'know, Trout, Ward, Logan O'Hoppe, Miguel Sano honestly, they're putting in good work. Trout has 8 homers, it feels like vintage Trout. All the young guys they really want to rely on...aren't really playing well. And two of them are people who skipped minor league service time, Zach Neto and Logan Schanuel, and you never want someone to make a manager go 'well we should have kept them in the minors'. Schanuel's hitting .167, Neto's hitting .164. Mickey Moniak is similarly struggling. This is not what the Angels wanted after those guys helped out a great deal in the second half.

And that's honestly what the Angels feel like, a lot of the time: a house where after you fix one thing, three more things break down. Y'know, they have Trout playing well, the kids start hitting. They finally get Anthony Rendon on a tear, he gets hurt. It doesn't build on itself because things keep going wrong the second they're gonna build. 

The Angels are lucky that being 9-12 in April isn't enough for last in this division. The A's aren't doing very well either, and the Astros have no pitching. So they need to have some great games coming up to stay where they are, unless it'll go just about as well as the other Trout seasons in LA.

Coming Tomorrow- It took him a while to figure out where he was signing, and judging by his start to the season he picked a decent place.