Fourteen men left on base
The Angels put runners everywhere on Wednesday night and could not finish a single inning cleanly. Fourteen left on base is the number that explains a 7-2 defeat to Seattle in Anaheim, and it explains most of what has gone wrong in a season that has Los Angeles at 58-94.
They loaded the bases with nobody out in the opening inning and came away with one run, a Vaughn Grissom sacrifice fly that scored Zach Neto. Seattle had loaded them in the top half and scored twice, a Cal Raleigh sacrifice fly followed by a Josh Naylor single. That gap of one run, produced by identical situations, set the shape of the night.
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The fifth inning did the damage
Seattle scored three runs on one hit in the fifth. Yusei Kikuchi walked Randy Arozarena and Dominic Canzone, Raleigh doubled one home, Julio Rodriguez was walked intentionally to reload, and Naylor hit what should have been a double play to Grissom at first. The throw to second sailed into left field and two more runs came in.
Kikuchi finished at 4 1/3 innings, five runs, four earned, five hits and five walks against four strikeouts. He falls to 1-6. Carlos Vargas took the win for Seattle with 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief, one hit allowed and three strikeouts, his first of the year.
Raleigh went 2-for-3 with the double and three runs batted in, then added another RBI single in the sixth off Sammy Peralta. Canzone drove in the other insurance run. Arozarena reached once by hit and scored three times, which says something about how often Los Angeles pitchers were working from behind.
Small comfort for both
Denzer Guzman was the one Angel who converted, going 4-for-5 with a run. Neto and Moises Ballesteros each had two hits. The offense produced volume without sequencing, and the season is long past the point where that can be fixed.
Seattle move to 71-82, a record that already guarantees their first losing season since 2020. Avoiding a sweep by a 58-win team is the kind of result that matters to a clubhouse and to nobody else. Nine games remain.
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