{"id":21050,"date":"2025-06-28T05:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T05:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/21050\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T05:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T05:57:09","slug":"angels-fail-to-capitalize-on-chances-in-loss-to-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/21050\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels fail to capitalize on chances in loss to Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Game 81. The halfway point of the 2025 season arrived at Angel Stadium \u2014 and the Angels<\/a>, albeit squarely in contention at .500, were dealing with a bit of organizational uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Angels general manager Perry Minasian<\/a> announced before Friday\u2019s game that manager Ron Washington would remain on medical leave<\/a> for the rest of the season because of an undisclosed health issue.<\/p>\n

Bench coach Ray Montgomery took over the reins on June 20 as the acting \u2014 now interim \u2014 manager as the Angels entered Friday winners in seven of their last 10 games.<\/p>\n

The Angels are in a much better spot than 2024. This time last season, after game 81, they were 11 games under .500 \u2014 squarely out of the postseason hunt.<\/p>\n

Friday, however, even after losing 15-9<\/a> in a three-hour, 11-minute slog of a series opener against the Washington Nationals (34-48), the Angels (40-41) still are just two games out of the third American League wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

In a game where the Angels and Nationals combined for 24 runs and 30 hits \u2014 with the 19 hits and 15 runs given up by the Angels\u2019 pitching staff representing season-worst marks \u2014 what ultimately separated the teams was the Angels\u2019 inability to come through with runners on base.<\/p>\n

In the sixth and seventh innings \u2014 down one and two runs, respectively \u2014 the Angels had opportunities to take the lead or tie the game with runners in scoring position, but failed to capitalize. From there, the Nationals\u2019 lead would grow, with Hunter Strickland giving up four runs in the ninth as part of a 10-run barrage against the Angels\u2019 bullpen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of just felt like an off-night tonight all the way up and down,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cThose guys have been asked to do a lot over the last few weeks, and they\u2019ve responded. So tonight wasn\u2019t the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early innings, the Angels had plenty of opportunities against Nationals starting pitcher Jake Irvin, who struggled against the heart of the lineup.<\/p>\n

Jo Adell struck a 92-mph fastball high and away to right field for a solo home run \u2014 his 18th overall and 11th in June \u2014 in the second. An inning later, Nolan Schanuel and Taylor Ward received hanging breaking balls \u2014 a high curveball and slider, respectively \u2014 and pulled the ball for short-porch home runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is that if we\u2019re hunting the pitches that we want to do damage with pitcher to pitcher, we\u2019ll avoid the chase and kind of be able to get better pitches to hit,\u201d Adell said, who has helped the Angels post four or more walks in the last four games. \u201cYou know, our thing is, you\u2019re only as good of a hitter as the pitches that you get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three home runs across three innings helped the Angels build a three-run lead. Across 4 \u2153 innings of work against Irvin, the Angels\u2019 lineup continued to click. They tallied nine runs (eight earned to Irvin) on nine hits \u2014 just enough for an early lead as Jos\u00e9 Soriano trudged through his worst outing of the season.<\/p>\n

Soriano couldn\u2019t exit the fifth against the Nationals. The shutdown pitching he had featured in his last three starts \u2014 giving up just two runs across 20 \u2154 innings \u2014 looked like a distant memory. The right-hander struck out four and walked two, while giving up eight earned runs and nine hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, that\u2019s not what we would have expected, given what he did in his last three outings and what we talked about a little bit yesterday,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cJust wasn\u2019t sharp, didn\u2019t feel crisp from the get go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Soriano in Spanish through team interpreter Manny Del Campo: \u201cI feel a little bit upset because of my performance tonight. … I feel upset because I wasn\u2019t able to help win tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angels shortstop Zach Neto (shoulder) returned to action, striking out in the seventh inning as a pinch hitter.<\/p>\n

Before the game, Neto said that he\u2019d likely be able to hit before throwing \u2014 something he\u2019s yet to do \u2014 after jamming his shoulder on a stolen base attempt Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe proved to me, proved to the medical staff, proved to everybody else he was capable of coming in,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cWe thought it was a good time to give it a shot right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Angels will try to even the series Saturday with right-hander Kyle Hendricks (5-6, 4.83 earned-run average) on the mound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Game 81. The halfway point of the 2025 season arrived at Angel Stadium \u2014 and the Angels, albeit…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[4541,2379,19497,1582,276,5208,1910,19498,3688,4155,2961,5615,224,5337,5948,5368,7484,10201,5950,19499],"class_list":{"0":"post-21050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-angel","9":"tag-angels","10":"tag-bullpen","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-friday","14":"tag-game","15":"tag-hit","16":"tag-inning","17":"tag-june","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-lead","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-loss","23":"tag-nationals","24":"tag-opportunity","25":"tag-run","26":"tag-season","27":"tag-solo-home-run"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114759456716252873","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}