The Los Angeles Angels went into their Tuesday night game against the Colorado Rockies with a chance to take a 2-0 lead in their three-game set. Joe Maddon did not have many of his main weapons at his disposal, but had a team that still has put together some solid wins in recent weeks.
Instead, it was an ugly night on all phases, but particularly from the Angels defense. Two first inning errors allowed two Rockies runs to score, setting the tone for a game that was dominated by the Rockies. The Angels trailed 10-0 before scoring their first runs — a two-run home run by Shohei Ohtani — and wound up losing 12-3.
Maddon spoke about what went wrong for the Halos on Tuesday, saying that he still has faith in the players that struggled defensively, according to Megan Garcia of MLB.com:
“It was a leaky dam all night and we just couldn’t flood her up, and then eventually it morphed into what you saw,” Maddon said. “Our defense has been that good, and Jacky had a tough time, but I still have a lot of faith in him and everybody else.”
After that, Maddon said that a game like this is much easier to “throw away” than a close loss that came down to the final moments.
“This is the easier game for me to forget about,” Maddon said. “Those two-run losses or 3-2s and you got to dissect those. Those are much more difficult, so we just got to throw this one away, come back tomorrow and play it again.”
Beyond the blowout loss, Tuesday ended up being a perfect night for the Angels to be on the wrong end of a bad loss. The Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, and Cleveland Indians — three of the five teams ahead of them in the Wild Card race — all lost as well, meaning the Halos did not suffer in the standings.
Now, it’s just about taking care of business and grabbing a win on Wednesday night. Hopefully, repeat performances by the other Wild Card teams can give the Angels one final bump in the standings before the trade deadline.
Maddon hoping to figure out the bullpen
If Maddon had his way completely for this year’s trade deadline, he made it very clear that he would be a buyer. He believes the team is almost ready to compete at a playoff level, but they still have some things to figure out in their bullpen. Perhaps this means the Angels are looking at relief options available on the market.
