ANGELS POSTCAST: Halos WASTE Yusei Kikuchi's start with offensive DUD, lose 4-1 to San Diego Padres

0:00It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up everybody? This is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of the Lockdown Podcast Network, and if you haven't heard yet, we started a club and we would love for you to join. It's called the Everydayer Club, and one of the things that you get as a member is an ad-free version of the podcast that you're listening to right now. It works with whatever podcast app you already used, same episodes every day, just no ad. There's also a member's only group chat for fans of your team, plus a lot more. You can check it out by tapping the Everydayer Club link in the show notes. This is the Angels Postcast, your instant game reaction for the Los Angeles Angels, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

1:11Hello, Halo Nation, hello, Halo Hope Fools, and welcome back. To the latest edition of the Lockdown Angels Postcast, comment at your live as always after every single Angels game right here live with the Lockdown Angels YouTube channel, and after the fact, both on the channel, and remember the heck you get the Lockdown Angels Audio Podcast feed. If you don't know who I am, what is going on everybody? My name is Gavin Carlson spent four years as a credential journalist in the LA area, covering UCLA sports with the daily brewing and now in year three with the Lockdown Podcast Network where it's your team every day, the number one podcasting network in the world, and it's because of you guys. So thank you so much. Today's episode is brought to you by Game Time, download the Game Time app, create an account and use code Lockdown for $20 off your first purchase. Man, oh man, just one of those games, man, just one of those games, the Angels didn't have

2:14it, right? They did not have it falling four to one to a, again, very good San Diego Padres ball club to fall right back to 11 11. On the second half of the show, I want to have a conversation about the Angels and, you know, what we keep teetering between 500 a game above it, a game below it. This is just an average baseball team. We'll certainly talk about that. But you know where I'm starting with today's show, I have not done this in a while, but I'll tell you right now, time to reveal where the game was once or lost. It's the turning point. The turning point, the turning point, of course, is the late innings of this ball game, but what I'm referring to is if you can see it right there, coin flip Carlson is back. This is the definition of a coin flip game in my opinion. And I know, I know it's, it was a meme the last couple of years. I didn't really say coin flip at all this season, but it felt like a vow of time to bring

3:15it up. And not because it's an obvious example. You see four, one, you think one team played that much better than the other, but this comes down to one or two swings in certain moments and a little bit of luck. Let's be honest, right? The angels have a home run robbed in this game. And I know the angels are not the team that complained about getting home runs robbed with what Joe Adele did to the Seattle Mariners three times in one ball game. But this is a game that's zero, zero until the eighth inning, largely because you say Kikuchi was great, largely because the, the Padres, both starter and bullpen was great. But they did have a home run robbed in this ball game, a fantastic catch by Jackson Merrill, robs a yaw on Montcotta home run in the second inning. And then outside of that, you look at when, when you get to the eighth inning, when the runs are actually scored, the baseball gods did their thing. They certainly did. And they penalized Maneland for lead to back-to-back walks to lead off the top of the eighth

4:16inning. How many times do we talk about it? This, this idea of the baseball gods and no, do I think there's literally some baseball god pulling strings, not necessarily, but there's certainly luck involved in this thing we love called sports. And when you walk to guys to start the ball game, not to mention the guys you're walking in this lineup, nowhere near the scariest part, you're walking in the eight and nine hitters. That one made it so frustrating. For me, it comes into this ball game with a, or finishes the game with an average of one eighty two. J Kroneworth is hitting one fifty two on the season and you walk both of them to lead off the top of the eighth inning. That, in my opinion, without a doubt, is the turning point. Absolutely. Now, where the coin flip aspect comes is what happens after that? Because yes, there's two RBI base hits in this, that right that follow, but neither of them are, are squared up in any way. Roman, Loriano hits a chopper up the middle. This one, you know, I'm not going to say is lucky, right? He hit the ball well, ninety nine off the bat, but he happens to hit it the one spot between

5:19Neto and Parasa up the middle. It was just hard enough to get through the infield, but then just soft enough to where there's no chance the center fielder can get that and throw out or run or at home because the ball is just dribbling into center field. That scores a run. And then is there a better example of luck than the RBI base hit from Fernando Tati's junior right after that again, you got a great luck. That's how you win this baseball thing a lot of the times and two lead off walks or two lead off, two back to back walks to lead off the inning and a base hit up the middle certainly is you earning, you know, your luck and then taking advantage of it and going ahead to O in this at bat Tati's against Ryan Zephragin who comes into the game going up to O certainly helps you out, right? It certainly does, but I don't know, man. When's the last time you've seen a ball hit that weekly for an RBI crazy, I mean Zephragin is a guy.

6:20I still have a lot of hope in. I thought he was not even terrible in this game outside of the two lead off walks. He falls behind 2-0. He gets a foul ball on a sinker right down the middle. And then he throws a sinker up and in. If this ball's not swung out, you're saying this is a horrible pitch, you know, nowhere near the zone. But when someone is swinging at that pitch, you know, there's a level of run, a level of inside break on that pitch that is nasty, right? It tells you how good Zephragin sinker has become. If Tatis is even remotely considering swinging at a pitch that's barely, it's in the batter's box, right? But somehow some way as Aaron or Baron says, Tatis is hit was like 25 miles an hour off the bat. Yeah, the official stat 57.9 is the Miles Proud, the exit Velo. But with the shift on, the ball gets through to right field, that I was infuriating to make it to nothing. And I don't know about you guys. I always say this, right? I'm not a halo Homer in any way.

7:20I'm very realistic about the team. But one thing I've consistently said for now two and a half years or the little over two years. Now season number three is that I trust the angels. If you make it a one run game in the eighth and ninth inning, I trust us to at least get guys on base. If not for run or hit a solo shot or something, something about the, the angels, they at least make it interesting in the late innings more than other teams. I really think so. Now, you know, not more than the teams they play against because our ball pen is consistently awful. And every game is consistently stressful when our ball pen is pitching. But I still think if you look at the league average in terms of the ability to get guys on base and score runs in the late innings, the angels are good at that. They at least make things interesting when you give them a shot. If it's one nothing going in the bottom of the eighth, I think there's like a 35 40% chance pop maybe even 50 that the angels can score a run tie the game up. But when it's two nothing off that little weak dribbler, that's rough. Now ironically, the angels do exactly what we expect or at least what I expect. And they do make things interesting immediately in the bottom of the eighth.

8:23Adam comes in and immediately Logan O'Hoppy gets a little bit of luck, a little bloop single into left to start the inning. And then Adam Frazier continues to hit the cover off the baseball was just another professional at Batman falls behind O2 gets it back to two to and then hits a two to change up. Outside rips it 94 off the bat for a base hit just like that to on nobody out. Man, Zach Netto, this is frustrating and it's been a couple of times with him. Just need a productive out at worst, a productive out at worst, but Netto strikes out. And that just kind of took some some air out of the tires. Obviously you ended up getting a run with the Nolan Shawingwell two out single. But what makes this just like I said, just one of those coin flip baseball games. Let's not forget in that at bat, Zach Netto rips an O2 change up down the line. That just barely is not fair. And if that ball is fair, it might be two to it might be two to meanwhile, Fernando

9:24Tottis hits one 57 miles an hour off the bat and it scores a run, right? That's that's the game we hate and love at the same time. That what makes baseball what it is, right? So very frustrating that Tottis gets an RBI Netto rips one down the line foul and then ends up striking out. Mike Trout ends up lining out. He hit it not crazy hard or anything. But the angels do still a steal a run via the Nolan Shawingwell base hit. Great job fall behind in this count one, two. You're able to challenge what was strike three and then hit a change up outside. Somehow it was very outside and somehow able to hit it up the middle center field. Score low, going to hop he that made it to one. Would have been nice if Joe Del could come through. He could not. It was a tough at bat seven pitches. It's really all you can ask for. Del behind early state of life and not able to come through. But again, how big was that run from Tottis massive? Because if the angels are down one nothing, that Shawingwell base hit obviously ties the game and it's looking like a very different story going into the ninth instead. You're down to one going into the ninth and then I don't know about you guys.

10:26But when I have to watch Sandlin followed by Sean Anderson, oh man. You just know it's going to be bad. Now obviously Anderson didn't do anything wrong in this one. But Sandlin, he's a average at best reliever came into the comes into this appearance as first of the year for the angels with like a career 3.5 ERA something like that. He wasn't horrible, but he wasn't great either as he gives up to very, very, very costly runs. And again, it's the walk that kills him to walks after you give up a lead off single. He steals second. You get Gavin sheets to ground out, but then back to back walks. Coriano comes up with the bases juiced. And quite frankly, you're lucky that it's just a sack fly for a run and a base hit for a run. It could have been a lot worse with the bases load in one out, but as good as the angels put up a fight there in the ninth inning against Mason Miller, man, you're never going to score three runs. You're never probably going to score a run. And right now nobody can even get base hits. Shout out to you on Moncada for even being able to do that. But again, this was just a classic coin flip game where a couple pitches go a different

11:28way, a couple of bats go a different way. You could easily be talking about the angels at 12 and 10, winning a series against San Diego with the opportunity to sweep the San Diego Padres. Again, not going to set off any alarms, you know, freak out or anything like that. Just one of those games. Just one of those games. So we're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about you say Kikuchi, man, because the offense was very cold and let down you say Kikuchi. That's kind of the biggest frustrating sticking point in this game is you wasted a really good, you say Kikuchi start with probably your worst offensive performance of the season. We'll talk about that. And we will look forward to the rubber match tomorrow after our break here on the locked on angels postcast. I'll be right back. Now on this Friday. Today's show is once again brought to you by game time. The MLB season is back. It's well underway and you can feel it. Fresh starts, big expectations. And that first crack of the bat, whether it's a beautiful, beautiful, excuse me, whether it's a breakout rookie or division race that goes down to the wire.

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14:38Back here live the locked on angels post cast, angels won Padres for as the series moves to a one one split. The angels obviously had a amazing touching phenomenal performance yesterday. Honoring Garrett Anderson again, I'll be remiss to not mention it again. Rest in peace to the great Garrett Anderson thoughts and prayers with his family again. You know, it's not like you remember it for one day and then you just continue moving on with life. Like, you know, for his family and his loved ones, they'll never forget yesterday, right? So thoughts and prayers with them again. It's very touching and I'm glad that the angels are doing the bare minimum, which is having the patch on the shoulder for the rest of the season and hopefully playing in his honor. They certainly did yesterday with an eight nothing win, not quite today with a 4-1 loss, but one guy who certainly played his best this season, right? Was you say Kikuchi? A lot of question marks about him coming into the game. Obviously the ERA over six, but he's able to lower it today. Six scoreless innings, man.

15:42I mean, I don't know about vintage, you say Kikuchi, but pretty close to it against again, the very difficult lineup in the San Diego Padres to go six innings, just four hits, just one walk. That's the most impressive thing for me. He struggled with the walk. He struggled to avoid the big blow up innings. He obviously didn't have a blow up inning. He didn't have any, you know, complications, just one walk, four hits to eight strikeouts. He was cruising the problem is the angels offense was allowing Marques to cruise as well. And that's obviously what this comes down to is why this is a frustrating loss. You really had a missed opportunity here. You say Kikuchi, I don't know if this start alone is enough for me to regain the confidence in him to be a true number two. Right, I don't know how many starts like this we're going to get from him. Now, am I saying he's suddenly terrible and is going to have a five, six, three, ERA for the whole season? Of course not, but do I expect the ERA to be closer to four than to three? I do. This is going to be one of his better starts of the year when you're talking about six scoreless innings and to not win the game is frustrating.

16:43I know some people are going to talk about when he was pulled right here. Aaron says I feel like Suzuki pulled a plug on him to early had like 80 pitches and gave up one walk. Again, the one walk, the control was certainly there in terms of the pitches for Kikuchi without 86. So I kind of agree with you. I think it would have been nice to see him come out for one more inning. And again, if you're pulling him because he's in a jam, that's one thing, right? If he comes in the top of the seventh against Bogart's on Doohar and Sheets and gives up a base hit to Bogart's to start the inning or something and then he's at 90 pitches. Sure, maybe you pull him there, but he Kurt Suzuki elects to pull Kikuchi right away, not even giving him opportunity in the seventh inning. And sure didn't necessarily matter at the same time as much as I want to maybe say he could have been left in a little bit longer. I like giving the guy an opportunity, at least open the seventh inning at the same time. I cannot be a hypocrite. I cannot go against what I've said earlier in the year, which was I like when you say Kikuchi is proactive with his decisions, not reactive, right? And to go from the lefty and Kikuchi to the righty in Zepprojon with back-to-back varieties in Bogart's and in Doohar leading off the inning, I'm not necessarily that opposed to that, right?

17:53I think conventional thinking is, hey, you let the starter come out and see what he can do. But if the starter comes out and gives up a base hit to Bogart's and then you've got sure a righty and in Doohar, but then a lefty and Gavin Sheets after that, you know, the question is then, do you bring in a righty? Do you bring in a lefty? What do you do? Right? So he brings in the righty right away and handles business gets a one, two, three inning with the single, but then the double play, I'm not going to go too hard into that. Yeah, I think being is absolutely right here. He says, could have like Kuchigo and other inning, however he needed to have a start like this to get back on track, and that's what matters most, right? It does feel like, you know, a missed opportunity to not win a game where you get to start like this from you say, Kuchi, but it is also very encouraging to see him at least, you know, have a performance like this. And yeah, last name Charles is absolutely right. He says, yep, if we, if he would have crashed, we'd be saying he should have been pulled LOL. So totally agree. I'm not going to, you know, be frustrated about that. The biggest point here that last name Charles also makes is we have a bullpen.

18:55But three big pieces are on the I L. And at the end of the day, that's kind of where I'm going to leave this thing after I talk about the offense, which we'll get to right now. We'll talk about the bullpen, but the offense just had one of those games the first time and I believe six games at the angels don't hit a home run, which is more so saying how great they've been certainly with the slug, especially more so than how underwhelming this game is just one of those games again. I'm not going to keep saying it 20 times four walks is obviously not the seven or eight that we've had a couple times this year. But four walks is still better than you were getting a lot of last year. The 10 strikeouts is a lot. The biggest issue obviously is this only six hits and you leave eight runners in scoring position. You go one for eight with runners in scoring position. That's what it comes down to. You didn't have many opportunities and when you did you didn't come through again. Again, exact nettles hardline drive that goes foul is fair. We're talking about the angels probably winning this baseball game, right. If if you're on Montcata's home run is not robbed, we're talking about another game where you hit a home run the street continuing. So I'm not going to sound any alarms.

19:56I'm really not at the end of the day, the angels are an average baseball team. And I don't think that's unfair to say. And I don't necessarily think that's an insult. Right. I think some people hear me say that and go, you're being, you know, unfair. They're, you know, they're playing the Padres who are a really good team and you're almost beating them. But me saying the angels are average is a compliment with where they should be with like we just mentioned the bullpen being very hurt. You're still missing a starting picture and you didn't come in with very high expectations at all. You're projected to almost lose 100 games. So I'm not at all being insulting when I say the angels are an average baseball team. 11 and 11 is 11 and 11 is a very accurate record. Now should it be two games higher because what happened in the Yankee series. Absolutely. But 11 11. It's a fair record. If you win tomorrow, you're 12 and one through your first 23 games against very difficult opponents. I would absolutely take that. It's still a B to B plus start to the season, especially if you missed or if you win tomorrow, Austin, rightfully mentioning that. It's gone. Obviously, we know there's no Ben Joyce, no Kirby, we know all the absences in the bullpen, right? So that was the other glaring thing in this game is just the talent discrepancy for the bullpen's where you see, you know, the Padres bring in the hottest reliever.

21:06In a long time in Mason Miller, when we've got Sandlin and Sean Anderson pitching in the ninth. And that for John pitching before that that tells you all you need to know, right? So is what it is one of those games. I've said it a million times. But I'm not too frustrated. It, you know, we'll be fine. We'll see what can happen tomorrow. Read Demers has an opportunity to continue kind of a hot stretch for him. We'll see, you know, I don't know what to expect from the Demers. I'll be honest. But 107 first pitch, which means the game should end around 4 p.m. So expect me live. Then again, shout out to everybody in here. I know yesterday was a very emotional day. So shout out to everybody who was in here, supporting each other and shout out to everyone in here tonight. I hope you have a great rest of your Saturday night. And the angels will be just fine. Hopefully we get a read Demers start that we can celebrate tomorrow. But I'll see you back here live after the game. Rubbermatch 107 first pitch against the Padres. I do got to say the energy at the big a has been great. I know there's a lot of Padres fans there. It's been frustrating. But the energy is there. It should be rocking even though it's a day game.

22:06There's Sunday day games to win series. Those are the ones that make a break the season. So it would be really awesome in front of what will be an electric ride if we can pull one out tomorrow. But have a great rest of your evening. Take care. Keep your heads up. We'll be just fine. Go anglers. Take care. Love you guys.