You stand alone in front of the growing crowd, their collective voices rising in a crescendo, feeding off of one another.
“Piggyback!” yells one.
“Piggybackburner!” yells another.
“Dan’s in way over his head!” someone hollers, and then your body jolts back as the force of a ferry boat’s worth of garlic fries pummels your front.
“Fire the hitting coaches!”
“No! Fire the whole Front Office!”
That last one is accompanied by a splash, as seemingly-coordinated cups of beer are hurled at you from multiple directions.
“The bullpen sucks!”
“The offense sucks more!”
“It’s the Mariners – everything about them is bad and they always will be!”
You begin to be pummeled with small, stuffed versions of Humpy. It doesn’t seem too bad at first, but there are so many of them that they start to subsume the stage. You lose your balance and fall over, and before you can lift yourself up there are Humpys heaped all over you, weighing down your body and muffling your face. Your breathing grows shallow.
Off to the side, down a step and shrouded behind the curtain, someone cups their hand over their mouth and whisper-shouts “It’s okay! Their division is still really bad, and they’ve been hurt, and they have one of the lowest BABIPs in the league. Plus, they play the Angels this week!”
I do not say this lightly, but thank goodness for the Angels. They’ve recently jettisoned former GM Perry Minasian (unrelated to this author), but it seems unlikely that any true franchise change will happen while Arte Moreno still rules with his lumpy little fist. Based only on the small mercies of the Midwest, they are not the worst team in the American League, but they’ve been flirting with the title all season.
Mike Trout had a torrid start to the season, but will miss the Mariners this series due to a hamstring strain that put him on the IL back on June 18. Zach Neto continues to be deeply annoying and productive, and then there’s…uh, well…you can see the chart. I think that’s probably enough for everyone.
Probable Pitchers
From a previous series preview:
Ryan Johnson is a perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with the Angels current player development philosophy. He was drafted in the second round in 2024 after dominating in college ball at Dallas Baptist. He made the Opening Day roster in 2025 as a reliever, skipping the minor leagues entirely. After a month and a half and a 7.36 ERA, the Angels pulled the plug and sent him to High-A to continue his development as a starter. He made 12 starts in the minors and looked really good. Fast forward a year and Johnson had a solid, but not outstanding, spring training and Los Angeles opted to start the season with Johnson on the big league roster again. His first start of the season did not go well; he lasted just 3.1 innings against the Cubs, allowing six runs on seven hits and four walks while striking out just two. It’s really too bad because Johnson has a really intriguing profile, and obviously has some raw talent, but the games the Angels have played with his development pathway have really hurt his ability to grow.
Johnson didn’t actually make his scheduled start against the Mariners back in early April — he was placed on the IL and missed his turn in the rotation. The Angels still haven’t committed to a development plan for him either. He made three appearances out of the bullpen once he returned from his IL stint but the team sent him back to the minors to get stretched out as a starter again.
José Soriano is a weird pitcher. He throws extremely hard, he has three pitches with elite whiff rates, and his groundball rate is among the highest in baseball. Last year, his ERA outpaced his FIP by more than half a run. This year, the script is flipped; his ERA is nearly a full run lower than his FIP. Maybe he read my profile of his issues from last summer because, all of a sudden, he’s striking out a bunch more batters. He’s reduced the usage of his sinker in favor of his four-seamer and splitter, but his command hasn’t improved with the pitch mix change. The result is more punchouts, but also a lower groundball rate, a high walk rate, and more damage on contact allowed.
If you were just loosely throwing out comps for Walbert Ureña, José Soriano would be pretty high on the list. Like his teammate, Ureña throws really hard, relies on a sinker to generate groundball contact, has two pitches with high whiff rates but a low-ish strikeout rate, and doesn’t have great command of his arsenal. He’s just 22 with four years of professional experience under his belt, he’s still learning the ins and outs of pitching and his raw stuff is still a work in progress. He’s made some big strides forward this year and has quickly earned a solidified role in the Angels rotation.
The Big Picture:
They should be better than this, but so far they haven’t been. In some ways, it’s a relief that they’ve fallen out of first place, because it does at least reflect their actual performance and overall vibes right now. Perhaps it’s old-fashioned of me, but I don’t think teams playing under .500 ball should get to win their divisions. The Rangers and Astros each embark on their own Midwestern ramble, playing the Guardians and Twins, respectively, while the Athletics begin an NL onslaught with three games against the Dodgers.
