Angels pitching hits rock bottom and there's little room for optimism moving forward

The Pittsburgh Pirates came into their series opener against the Angels with one of the worst offense in the league, but they left with...well, their offense is still terrible but it looked great in Anaheim. As Jeff Fletcher pointed out, the Pirates came into the game with a .206 batting average and left with a .218 average after amassing, count them, 18 hits! All five pitchers the Angels used allowed at least one hit --- José Soriano uncharacteristically allowed eight in 3.1 innings, and their young, inexperienced relievers that followed combined for ten. Six Pirates hitters had multi-hit days, punctuated by Tommy Pham and his sub-.200 batting average collecting three hits. The worst part for Angels fans is this did not feel like a one-off game whatsoever.

Angels pitching hits rock bottom while facing one of the worst offenses in baseball

The Angels pitching had a ton of signifiers showing that their recent streak of shutting down offenses was a mirage. The pitchers' performances against Texas and San Francisco was noise, not signal. The staff's issues are mostly centered around their league-worst strikeout to walk ratio, and the staff still came away from the Pirates game with another horrid 6:7 mark, but their inability to miss barrels was a massive concern too. Chase%? Sixth worst. Miss%? Seventh worst. wOBA (pitching)? Fifth worst. All the concerns came together like a horrible symphony against the Pirates and their 26th ranked batting average, 23rd ranked OBP, and 28th ranked SLG.

The pitching staff went from taped-together to completely unraveled in the game, and they need upgrades fast. This is not an overreaction to one game -- the signs were there that this unit would be a problem. Soriano just had a rough outing and is definitely much better than he was on the day, but the point stands that if he is being relied upon to be perfect every start if your team is going to contend for a playoff spot...then your pitching staff is in a rough spot.

The Angels clearly identified that their team needed more power arms in the offseason, and they came away with Yusei Kikuchi and Kenley Jansen. Kikuchi, Soriano, Tyler Anderson, and Jansen are holding it down for the pitching staff while the inexperienced pitchers with subpar stuff around them are faltering.

Angels' pitchers have a Stuff+ grade of 96, good for the third worst ranking in all of baseball. That's obviously a huge reason why they cannot strike batters out, and why they have one of the worst HR/9 rates in baseball. The Angels' bullpen trotted out two rookies (Garrett McDaniels and Michael Darrell-Hicks) and a first-year reliever in Ian Anderson against Pittsburgh. Ryan Zeferjahn and Ryan Johnson have been bright spots, but they are rookies as well who will definitely regress in the near-future. The staff is not good enough right now.

Aside from Robert Stephenson and Ben Joyce hopefully returning from their injuries soon, the Angels could still go out and sign David Robertson. Maybe they finally tell Caden Dana that he will by a linch-pin of the bullpen full-time after his brief cameo earlier in the season? It's never too early to make a trade for a starting pitcher. Whatever the case may be, the pitchers are going to cause much anxiety for fans the whole season, so the lineup will need to carry this team in a major way if the Angels are to turn in a successful, bounce-back season.

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