Angels News: Yusei Kikuchi exits last game with injury, hitters can't stop whiffing

After the Angels used the same five-man rotation for a near-record amount of time, Kyle Hendricks is now the last man standing due to the schedule, ineffectiveness and injury.

Tyler Anderson has been on the shelf with a left oblique strain for nearly a month. Kochanowicz has been jettisoned away from the major leagues for a month now as well, and made his last start before the minor league season ended with the Salt Lake Bees all the way back on September 2nd (this was not reported but it feels like the organization shut him down for the year due to workload/confidence/performance related reasons). José Soriano took a comebacker to his forearm on September 17th, and was shut down for the season with a contusion on his throwing arm (the X-rays came back negative for any sort of fracture).

Yusei Kikuchi, the team's ace, made his final start of the 2025 season on Wednesday but it ended abruptly due to an injury. He walked off with an athletic trainer and his interpreter after five innings of one-run ball against the Kansas City Royals.

Angels News: Yusei Kikuchi exits last game with injury, hitters can't stop whiffing

After an initial report that state Kikuchi was removed from his start due to forearm cramping, his injury was later described as an issue with "the lower part" of a finger. He later stated that it's fine.

Kikuchi's departure took away some additional drama between the team and the pitcher, after he publicly lamented Ray Montgomery's decision to give him the hook that he deemed to be early in his penultimate start of the season. Kikuchi was pitching with a lead against the Royals, and had only thrown 66 pitches to that point before his exit.

“Commanded the ball, was handling the zone as good as we’ve seen all year,” Ray Montgomery stated postgame about Kikuchi. “Efficient. Who knows how far he would have gone tonight had he not gotten that little cramp?” Montgomery truly has shaken off the prior riff between the starter and himself. Due to Kikuchi's efficiency in that outing and his prior comments, all fingers would have been pointed at Montgomery if he had once again gone to his bullpen amidst a dominant Kikuchi outing. Guess we'll never know what would have went down, things wrapped up real nicely for the Angels here.

Separately, the Angels cut down on their strikeouts in the contest vs. the Royals -- they only fanned six times! The Angels had struck out nine times or more for 11 straight games, with an 18 strikeout game on 09/14 against Seattle being the true nadir of the season for the run production unit (which was the final loss of a four-game sweep against their division rivals).

Much has been said of the 2025 Angels striking out more than virtually every team in baseball history, and the whiff percentage is the true catalyst for those Ks. This month alone the Angels have an in zone whiff percentage of 24.4% and swinging strike percentage of 16%, which are the worst rates in baseball. For the season, the team's InZone Whiff% and SwStrk% both rank 29th (only the Rockies have worse rates).

On September 12th, two days before the team struck out 18 times, the Angels set the worst in zone whiff% in game this season. They posted a 44% whiff rate against the Mariners. Yes, in that game they whiffed on nearly half of their swings.

The Angels clearly need to tweak their swing decisions and organizational philosophy on hitters' approaches, and/or acquire some hitters with elite bat-to-ball skills (in the Nolan Schanuel mold) to compliment the free-swinging sluggers in Zach Neto, Mike Trout, Logan O'Hoppe, Jo Adell and Taylor Ward. Watching this team hit is painful, especially as they finish the season with the worst record in the AL West.

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