New Angels manager proving his incompetence on a nightly basis

When the Angels brought Ron Washington on as manager, he was given the freedom to select his own coaching staff. The only person in the dugout that was not chosen by Washington to be there was bench coach Ray Montgomery, who is now serving as interim manager as Washington deals with his health issues.

However, interim does not mean he is irreplaceable. While it was announced that Washington would be missing the entirety of the 2025 season, likely ending his coaching career, that should not mean Montgomery is automatically making the calls all season. So far, in the series against the Braves, he has made some questionable calls that have compounded on themselves.

In the opening game, the Angels jumped out to a 4-0 lead after Tyler Anderson had a bounce back game and the offense finally woke up against the Braves' bullpen. While four run leads aren't a sure thing, it does allow some relaxed breathing. With a solid bullpen and 13 games in 13 days leading up to the All Star Break, one could have assumed a combination of Sam Bachman, Ryan Zeferjahn, Brock Burke, and Jose Fermin would pitch the final two innings. And if some traffic got on base, sure Reid Detmers could come in. However, Montgomery opted to use Detmers in the eighth, and despite a four run lead, Kenley Jansen in the ninth.

This not only upset Jansen, who stated he'd prefer to be saved for, well, saves, but also confused Halo fans. On the brink of .500, one can understand wanting to win the game a little more than usual. But using your top two relievers when you don't have to at the beginning of this stretch of games was borderline malpractice by Montgomery, and impacted the next night's game greatly.

Yusei Kikuchi took the mound in the second game of the series and, as usual, was electric. His pitch count was higher than usual, and he was through 5.2 innings when he allowed back-to-back singles. A staple of Washington's management was a visit to the pitching mound, an earnest conversation with his starter, and then leaving him in if deemed appropriate. Montgomery simply pulled Kikuchi despite Christian Moore nearly making a play on the second single (resulting in a scary injury).

And with Detmers having pitched the night before, in came Zeferjahn. And on the first pitch, Sean Murphy gave the Braves a 3-2 lead. Later in the inning, Matt Olson smacked a grand slam off Zeferjahn to make it 7-2, effectively ending the Angels' hopes of a winning record Wednesday night.

Now, managers are not fired based on two decisions. But these moves wreak of inexperience, and Montgomery needs to be actively learning and changing his approach as manager as the Angels continue fighting for a spot in the postseason. If not, the Angels need to make another coaching change this season, as this team has too much talent for Montgomery to misuse it and cost them winnable games.

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