The Los Angeles Angels are heading into a series opener against the Chicago White Sox on Monday night with the same problem that has followed them for most of the month: they keep losing, and the losses are piling up fast. José Soriano gets the ball at 6:38 p.m. PDT in Los Angeles, where the Angels will try to steady themselves after dropping 12 of their last 14 games.
The Angels are 13-22, the worst record in the American League, and they reached that low after losing a three-game series to the New York Mets over the weekend. They did manage a 4-3 win in 10 innings in the middle game, but the other two games went the wrong way, capped by a 5-1 loss in the finale. Jorge Soler singled home Zach Neto in that series finale, but it was not enough to keep the Angels from leaving the weekend in another hole.
That slide has erased the small cushion Los Angeles had built early in the year. The Angels were hanging around.500 until a 1-11 run sent them to the bottom of the AL, a stretch 's David Schoenfield summed up on Monday with a D-minus grade for April. Los Angeles finished the month 9-17, a record that reflects both how quickly the season turned and how little room the club has left to waste starts like the one Soriano is bringing into this matchup.
Soriano has been one of the few bright spots. He was named the AL Pitcher of the Month and enters the day 5-1 with a 0.84 ERA and a 0.94 WHIP through seven starts, with 49 strikeouts in 42.2 innings. He also saw the White Sox once already, on April 28, when he allowed three runs on six hits and three walks while striking out six in five innings. Chicago got the better of that first meeting, with Davis Martin outpitching him in a game that showed how narrow the margin can be between a clean night and another loss.
Martin has been solid in his own right. He is 4-1 with a 1.95 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP through six starts, with 33 strikeouts in 37 innings. On April 28, he worked 5.2 innings of one-run ball against the Angels, allowing seven hits and one walk while striking out seven. The White Sox come in looking for a different result after Los Angeles swept them in Chicago a week earlier, and the opener now gives both teams a chance to reset a matchup that has already swung once in each direction.
For the Angels, the bigger question is whether one strong night from Soriano can matter inside a month that has already gone sideways. He has done his part. The rest of the rotation and lineup have not, and until that changes, the best individual performances in the clubhouse may keep arriving in the middle of a losing streak instead of the start of a turnaround.
