Athletics vs. Angels Series Preview
Back in Sacramento for a new home stand
The A’s are back in Sacramento for some much-needed home cooking. After getting punched in the mouth over the weekend in San Francisco the club will now welcome the Los Angeles Angels to Sutter Health Park for the first time in 2025 for a four-game weekday series.
-Angels W/L record: 20-25 (5th in AL West)
-Run differential: -59
-Team OPS: .680 (23rd of 30)
-Team ERA: 5.08 (25th of 30)
Los Angeles is coming off an impressive three-game sweep of the city rival Dodgers. Doing that against the team with the best record and reigning champions would give any team a boost of confidence, and it should be especially encouraging for the Halos considering they did it without superstar Mike Trout, who will also miss this upcoming series due to that knee injury he’s currently dealing with.
The Angels have relied heavily on the long ball to power their offense. They’re 4th as a team with 68 total home runs, led by Taylor Ward (12), Logan O’Hoppe (10) and Trout (9). That said, all three of those players also have sub-.300 on-base percentages. In fact, the only hitter in the Angels’ lineup with an OBP over .300 is Nolan Schanuel and he only has two home runs as a first baseman. They live and die by the long ball, not dissimilar to the Athletics’ style of offense.
Los Angeles has usually struggled with putting together a quality pitching staff and that trend has continued into this season. The Halo’s have gotten strong production out of starters Tyler Anderson, third-year righty Jose Soriano and lefty Yusei Kikuchi but not much else from their other two starters, Kyle Hendricks and Jack Kochanowicz. The team has been fortunate to have their same starting five all season so far as the injury bug has avoided their pitchers. The Los Angeles bullpen has been a massive disappointment for them as they currently lead all of baseball with a 7.06 ERA as a group. If the Athletics can chase the Angels’ starters and get into their ‘pen the club will put themselves in an excellent chance to win.
The Athletics meanwhile enter tonight on their biggest losing streak of the season. After losing five in a row the team has dropped all the way to fourth place in the AL West, a far cry from where they were just a couple weeks ago. For all the success the A’s saw in the first month+ of the season they still have a worse run differential (-61) than the Angels (-59). The offense outside of Jacob Wilson and Shea Langeliers has gone cold and multiple regulars are suffering extended slumps all at the same time. The pitching has really fallen apart as well after facing a couple strong offenses in the Yankees and Dodgers. Things got a bit on track for the pitchers in San Francisco but the staff as a whole needs to step their game up.
Kicking things off tonight, the A’s will send rookie right-hander JT Ginn to the mound in his first start back from injury. He missed about three turns through the rotation recovering from an elbow injury but will make a quicker return than expected. His spot was taken by Gunnar Hoglund but now Ginn will return to the rotation in place of Osvaldo Bido, who was just demoted back to Triple-A. Ginn has a 4.61 ERA in three starts with the big league club and will look to build on that and hopefully earn a permanent rotation job.
Opposing Ginn for LA will be third-year righty Jose Soriano. The 26-year old has been one of the clubs most reliable pitchers as he’s second among Angels starters with a 3.46 ERA in nine starts. He’s been on a roll recently as he’s allowed just three runs over 18 innings in his past three outings. This won’t be a walk in the park matchup as Soriano is an under-the-radar quality pitcher.
Tuesday’s contest will feature a matchup between veteran Kyle Hendricks versus rookie Gunnar Hoglund. The 35-year-old Hendricks is in his first season in a Halo’s uniform after spending the first 11 seasons of his career pitching for the Cubs, where he helped lead them to a curse-breaking World Series win in 2016. His final few seasons for the Cubbies were marked by inconsistency and that has continued in his first season in Los Angeles. Hendricks has a 5.18 ERA on the year but also has several quality outings for the Angels.
Hoglund on the flip side is set to make his fourth career appearance and hoping to continue a solid start to his season. After dominating at Triple-A and earning a call up the former 1st-round pick has a 3.78 ERA in his first 16 2⁄3 big league innings. He faced his first adversity in his last outing but still managed to pitch into the sixth inning against a vaunted Dodgers lineup. Now he’ll go up against the other Los Angeles team looking to earn his second major league win.
The third game of the four-game series will see JP Sears take the mound for his 10th start of the year on Wednesday evening. The Athletics’ top starter this year had his first subpar outing last weekend when he allowed four runs for the first time all season. That raised his ERA to a still-respectable 3.31 through nine starts. He’ll be facing Halos second-year starter Jack Kochanowicz, a right-hander who will be making his 10th start of the season as well. After impressing as a rookie last year he’s seen some regression in his sophomore campaign, pitching to a 4.71 ERA in 49 2⁄3 innings.
Wrapping up the series on Thursday afternoon will be a pitching matchup between the team’s #1 starters. For the Angels they’ll turn to veteran left-handed Tyler Anderson hoping he can continue his hot start to the season. Currently in the final season of a 3-year deal the 35-year-old Anderson is having one of the best seasons of his career as his 3.04 ERA is currently 16th in the American League.
The A’s will counter with righty Luis Severino hoping the veteran can replicate his last outing. In need of a big bounce back the expensive pitcher cobbled together six shutout innings against the Giants. It wasn’t enough to earn him his second win so he’ll be on the hunt for that elusive W in the series finale against the Athletics’ division rival.