The Angels returned home Monday needing the offense to show up in the worst way. As laid out in the series preview, the team began the series with the fewest runs scored in baseball and with few signs of turning things around against the reigning World Champs. Thankfully, though, they did.
The club provided the rotation much-needed run support in spades, smacking the ball all over the diamond and cutting through the heart of their offensive woes: a lack of power. The Halos got seven total home runs from five different players in the series, helping raise the team OPS by nearly 50 points in just three days. The team remains at the bottom of the league in most offensive categories even after their 19-run, 27-hit bombardment of Kansas City, but there’s now at least some glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel. Heading to Arlington for the weekend (and facing Colby Lewis) should only bring that light closer.
Boxscore Breakdowns
Game 1: Angels 6, Royals 1
Game 2: Angels 9, Royals 4
Game 3: Angels 4, Royals 2
Series Takeaways
Rafael Ortega Seems Like the Answer in the No. 2 Spot
It’s still an absurdly small sample size, of course, but Ortega’s recent success hitting ahead of Mike Trout sure looks like the Angels stumbled into a solution for what was a very big problem in the season’s first three weeks. Ortega reached seven times in 13 plate appearances in the series and is in the midst of a five-game hitting streak from the two spot, reliably setting the table for the heart of the order.
If he were a right-handed or switch hitter there’d be a good chance the struggling Craig Gentry would be designated for assignment when Daniel Nava returns next week. As Ortega is left-handed, however, things become a little more complicated. He’s not going to replace Nava as the long arm of the left-field platoon, and pushing Ji-Man Choi off the active roster potentially pushes him out of the organization, leaving the team with no power bench bat. Luckily, there’s still a few days to go for the Angels to figure out the optimal move. My money’s on Choi being let go and then persuaded to re-sign on a minor-league deal—since the Orioles outrighted him last year, he doesn’t have to be returned to Baltimore like a regular Rule 5 pick would.
The Bullpen Is Becoming Something Of An Anomaly
The Angels relief corps held the Royals scoreless for a total of nine innings in the series, striking out seven in the process. It was a pretty good K total when you consider that Kansas City doesn’t strike out much, but a great K total relative to what the Angels ‘pen did through the season’s first six series.
The average MLB bullpen in 2016 is fanning about 23% of the batters it faces. The Angels bullpen, on the other hand, is striking out just 16.8% of batters, which is easily the lowest mark in baseball (and is actually up a few percent since the Royals came into town). It’s not that their guys don’t have a track record of striking batters out—the same arms produced an 22% K rate last year—it’s just that it isn’t happening so far this season for whatever reason. Of the seven regular bullpen arms, only Fernando Salas and Mike Morin have K/9 rates over 7.0. That’ll probably (hopefully) change, but in the meantime the Angels bullpen is unique.
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