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    5 takeaways from Angels’ first road trip of the season
    • April 2, 2026

    ANAHEIM — The Angels have already put their fans through a range of emotions in the first seven games.

    They will bring a 3-4 record into their home opener Friday against the Seattle Mariners, having played three clean, encouraging games and four ugly ones filled with mistakes and reasons to worry.

    Taking it as a whole, here are a few takeaways from the week – some positive and some not so much.

    The bullpen could be decent

    Angels relievers had a 2.13 ERA in the first seven games, which sounds good until you realize they gave up six earned runs and seven unearned runs. That sounds bad until you realize that most of that damage happened against Walbert Ureña, who is now back in the minors.

    On the whole, the performances of Jordan Romano, Chase Silseth, Ryan Zeferjahn, Sam Bachman and Brent Suter were all good. They didn’t allow any earned runs, although Silseth allowed two inherited runs that were charged to Jack Kochanowicz.

    Bachman has been particularly electric, striking out five in three innings. His fastball has averaged 98 mph and he’s gotten whiffs on 47% of his sliders, plus he’s broken out a new changeup.

    Also, Kirby Yates and Nick Sandlin could be in the bullpen within a couple weeks. Yates is rehabbing a knee injury and Sandlin is building up at Triple-A after offseason elbow surgery.

    Ben Joyce might be ready soon after that. Joyce has been throwing everything in bullpens in Arizona. The Angels just want him to be able to let everything go at 100% without reservations.

    The starters need to go deeper

    The bullpen’s good start is not going to last if the starters keep putting them in spots to work too many innings.

    José Soriano is the only starter who has finished six innings (twice). In four of the other five games, the starter didn’t even finish the fifth.

    In each of the bad games, they’ve seen their pitch counts climb because of an inability to put hitters away, even when they were still getting outs. Left-handers Reid Detmers and Yusei Kikuchi had trouble in Houston. Both failed to finish the fifth, even though only two runs were on the board when they were knocked out.

    And, obviously, Kochanowicz and Ryan Johnson were knocked out because of simple ineffectiveness, stemming from poor control. Kochanowicz walked five and Johnson walked four. The Angels better hope they were just showing some first-start nerves and they’ll get it together.

    Is Trout back or not?

    In the first two games, Mike Trout hit two homers, reached base eight times, struck out just once and stole a base. It was easy to buy the narrative that he was starting a renaissance season.

    Since then, he’s 2 for 17 with seven strikeouts. He’s still walked six times in those five games, so he’s at least still seeing the ball well. Also, three of his outs in those games were hit over 100 mph in the air.

    The good two games and the worse five games are all small sample sizes, so we still don’t know what kind of season he’s going to have.

    He’s clearly still feeling good, evident by a couple of his sprints in frigid Chicago.

    Lowe and Moncada need to be better

    The Angels’ lineup is heavily right-handed. Besides Nolan Schanuel, Josh Lowe and Yoan Moncada are the only two regulars who can hit from the left side. (Moncada is a switch hitter.)

    Lowe is 2 for 21 and Moncada is 3 for 21. Moncada, however, is at least providing some value by walking five times.

    Both players have been dogged by injuries in recent years. Lowe missed a few weeks in spring training with an oblique issue, and all he did to catch up was load up on at-bats in minor-league games. That’s nothing like facing major-league pitching, so it’s possible he just needs some more big-league at-bats to get his timing together.

    Neto and Schanuel are off to encouraging starts

    Zach Neto has struck out in 21% of his plate appearances and walked in 21%, after coming in with career averages of 25% and 6% respectively. If he can cut down the strikeouts and increase the walks over a whole season, it’s easy to see him jumping from last year’s .793 OPS to .875 or even .900. That takes him from very good to star.

    At the moment, Neto has an .894 OPS.

    Schanuel is doing his usual – 14% strikeouts and 14% walks – but he’s also hit two homers already. Don’t expect two homers every week, but if he can even get into the 20s – from a career high of 13 – that would be a nice boost.

    Schanuel has an .899 OPS.

    Schanuel’s bat speed continues to increase, albeit slightly. It went from 65.2 mph in 2024 to 67.5 last year to 67.9 so far this year.

    UP NEXT

    Mariners (RHP Bryan Woo, 0-0, 3.00 ERA) at Angels (LHP Reid Detmers, 0-0, 5.79), 6:38 p.m. Friday, FanDuel Sports Network, 830 AM

    ​ Orange County Register 

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