No one believes the Los Angeles Angels will be playing fall baseball this year.
Fangraphs gave the Angels a 0.7 percent chance of making the playoffs. It’s not unreasonable to assume that professional statisticians’ projections, based on tens of thousands of simulations, have a similar “miss” rate. I don’t think the Angels organization, coaching staff, and players on the field feel any differently.
It shows in their performance. The Angels split a doubleheader with the Tampa Bay Rays on April 20. Game 1 was a close 7-6 win, and Game 2 was a close 4-18 loss.
Game 1 wasn’t really a one-run win, it was a game that should have been easily won. After falling behind 0-2 in the second inning, the Angels tied the game with runners on first and second on a Mickey Moniak single and a Randall Grichik sacrifice fly, then scored four runs in the third inning on four hits and an error to take a 6-2 lead. But in the top of the fourth, Chase Cilses gave up a solo homer to Josh Law and a two-run shot to Rene Pinto to cut the deficit to one. In the bottom of the fifth, Brandon Drury hit a solo home run, but Griffin Canning gave up a solo shot to Jonathan Aranda in the top of the sixth to tie the game at one.
One of the worst things to happen in a game is to give up a run after scoring, and the Angels did it twice. The Angels were also unable to capitalize on a runner on second in the bottom of the sixth and runners on first and second with no outs in the seventh.
Game 2 is pretty self-explanatory. Starter Patrick Sandoval pitched well through three scoreless innings before giving up two runs in the fourth, and then with two outs in the fifth, Randy Arozarena’s routine fly to center fielder Jordyn Adams made a ridiculous error that allowed four runs to score. It’s no wonder the pitcher, the other hitters, and his dugout buddies got frustrated.
Hunter Renfroe’s solo shot in the bottom of the fifth, followed by Jaime Barria’s seven runs on six hits and a walk in the top of the sixth, put the game out of reach.
Shohei Ohtani couldn’t have been happier. After going 1-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout in Game 1, Ohtani was silent in Game 2, going 1-for-3 with a walk in his first three at-bats before hitting a double to right-center in the eighth inning. Still, he tried his best. With the bases loaded, he pulled hard on an 83.2-mph body changeup from right-hander Cooper Criswell, lined a 95.5-mph hard-hit fastball past the second baseman into right-center field and sprinted to second base with plenty of time to spare. Drury then followed with a three-run homer to center field.
After going 1-for-6 with a double and a walk in two games, Ohtani is batting .306 (140-for-458) with 43 home runs, 89 RBIs, 95 runs scored, a .407 slugging percentage, a .664 on-base percentage, a 1.071 OPS, and 304 runs batted in. He is tied for first in both leagues in home runs and leads the league in on-base percentage, OPS, and RBI. In the AL, they are first in slugging percentage, third in on-base percentage, third in RBI, and second in runs scored. A triple crown seems unlikely as he’s trailing only Tampa Bay’s Yandy Diaz (.325) in batting average.온라인카지노
Ohtani tried to spice things up with a walk-off home run the day before, but it came up short in a 6-9 loss in extra innings.
At 61-64, the Angels are now eight games back of the Seattle Mariners for the third AL wild card. Their 0.4 percent chance of making the playoffs is the lowest it’s been all season.