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Well it was one of the more eventful losses that the Angels have had all season. They did not start of the series how they wanted to. A series split of 2-2 looks like their best hope to salvage this road trip since it won’t get any easier when they take on the Giants.
Ohtani misses start due to traffic
Ohtani was a late scratch but was still included in the lineup as a DH. The Angels announced that it was a traffic jam that caused one of the team buses to be late. In fact, the bus never made it. Ohtani return to the hotel and then took BART, public train transportation, but apparently encountered another issue on the train.
Although the Angels didn’t specify what happened on the train, they seemed to blame the train system for the other delay. However, the BART Twitter account was quick to point out that there had been no issues reported. This obviously implies that there was an issue with the Angels’s staff. The extent of the issue is not known since no one from the Angels has responded to BART’s claim.
He said, BART said…
Could the issue be that sever that they do not want to bring it into the public eye? Or could it have simply been an issue of getting off at the wrong stop? Who knows but we do know that they are letting us speculate as to what happened. In all honestly it could have been nothing.
Either way, Patrick Sandoval was given the ball for the Angels. He pitched 5 solid innings without giving up a run. The A’s did tag him for 5 hits and 2 walks so he wasn’t dominating but the Angels couldn’t have asked for a better start. Sandoval put the Angels in a great position to win the game as they were tied 0-0 going in to the 6th inning. That’s where things went south for the Angels.
Bullpen obliterated in 6th inning
Maddon called on reliever Slegers to help keep the A’s scoreless but that ended very quickly. Slegers was only able to record one out and gave up a staggering 4 earned runs. He faced 5 batters and 4 of them were able to get on base. And things did not get better after that for the Angels. Maddon then turned to Claudio to help stop the bleeding but Claudio ended up turning the knife.
Claudio was faced 3 batters and all three of them reached base as he gave up 1 run and 2 hits. Guerra was called in to just get out of the inning at that point but he was able to finish off the game without allowing another hit.
Angels are on track for worst finish in about 25 years
The A’s on the other hand had Bassitt on the mound and he had his best outing of his career. He threw a complete game shutout with 9 strikeouts! Only 3 Angels reached base the entire game. The Angels will hope to bounce back today as they send Ohtani to the mound. With yesterday’s loss, the Angels have fallen 7 games from a playoff spot. If nothing changes soon, the Angels will be on pace to have their worst season in about 25 years.
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