The Los Angeles Angels went winless over Memorial Day Weekend, suffering a three-game sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Guardians. While two of the losses were only by one run, manager Ron Washington still is facing down the barrel of a 20-33 record and another lost series after the team finally looked like they were turning things around.
Perhaps the issue, shockingly, is that the Angels returned home. The Angels won series against both the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros last week, both on the road. In fact, the Angels only have four series wins this season, and all have come on the road. The Angels are 6-19 at Angel Stadium this season and 14-14 away from it.
Usually, teams heavily reliant on youth perform better at home than on the road. But the Angels are bucking the trend by being a .500 team away from Anaheim and holding by far the worst home record in the Majors this season.
Washington, for one, cannot figure out why the Angels are having this issue. But believes the fix is simpler than the team is making it out to be, according to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com:
“I don’t have any theories other than that a base hit would work in those situations,” Washington said. “A base hit in some of those situations will take care of everything.”
On the road, the Angels have a team OPS of .690 and a team batting average of .238. Those figures rank 13th and 16th in the Majors, respectively. Surprisingly, those numbers are even better at home. Their .252 average and .732 OPS rank eighth and ninth respectively.
It’s the pitching that is truly the difference, negating Washington’s point about how to get out of home games with more victories. The Angels have an ERA of 3.70 (12th) and a WHIP of 1.172 (seventh) when they pitch on the road. Those numbers skyrocket to an ERA of 5.68 (30th) and a WHIP of 1.476 (30th) at home. The home numbers are truly abysmal for an entire pitching staff.
Perhaps as the year goes on there will be some regression to the mean and the numbers will balance out. Until then, Angels pitchers have to figure out a way to be effective in Anaheim, especially as they have played fewer home games than road games up to this point.
Patrick Sandoval couldn’t settle in for Angels
The Angels were never close in a blowout loss against the Guardians on Friday night. The Guardians got on the board early and often, shelling Patrick Sandoval for eight earned runs on six hits and four walks over 3.2 innings. Even more damaging for Sandoval was that he retired the first four batters of the night.
Then, it fell apart quickly for the Angels Opening Day starter.
He retired only three of the next 10 batters he faced, giving up two runs in the second and another two in the third. Ron Washington, believing that Sandoval has shown the ability to settle in after rough innings, gave him a shot in the fourth frame. He proceeded to give up another four runs, including back-to-back homers from Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor.
The final result was one of Sandoval’s ugliest starts of the year.
