3 reasons for LA Angels fans to panic following embarrassing sweep vs. Padres

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Is this rock bottom? The Los Angeles Angels have been swept out of San Diego, losing the series finale 5-3. The Angels played a bit better to end the series, but facing an underperforming Padres team, getting swept should've been the last outcome here.

FINAL: The Angels lose 5-3 to the Padres. They were swept in San Diego.

Things are going very badly for the Angels. Injuries. Poor play. It's just ugly. They are just one game above .500 with two games in Los Angeles before the break.

They are 45-44, and have lost 7-of-8.
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) July 6, 2023

San Diego entered the series losers in seven of their previous eight games and eight games under .500 on the season. The Angels have had their own issues of late, but getting swept in embarrassing fashion by a team struggling this much should simply never happen.

Now at 45-44 on the season, the Angels who were recently as many as nine games over .500 are barely above .500 as they head to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers before the all-star break. This feels like the low point, and there're plenty of valid reasons for fans to be panicking.

1) The LA Angels got swept by a team playing even worse baseball than they were

The San Diego Padres were a train wreck entering this series. They had all the expectations in the world on their shoulders following an NLCS appearance last season and another expensive offseason. For the first three months of the season, the Padres played uninspired baseball and appeared to be closer to selling at the deadline than buying.

The Angels hadn't been playing great baseball entering this series either, but it was certainly better than the Padres. They were coming off of what felt like a very important victory to salvage the finale against the Diamondbacks as they defeated Zac Gallen, but they just played some horrible baseball in San Diego.

From failing to hit with runners in scoring position, to bullpen collapses, to poor starting pitching, it's hard to see much that the Angels did right. Patrick Sandoval pitched pretty well after a rough first inning, Jo Adell had a couple of good moments, Matt Thaiss broke out of a prolonged slump with a home run, that's really it.

For the Angels to be taken seriously, the Padres, even with their talent, were a team they had to find a way to beat. Sweeping a series is hard, but at least take the series. Or even win one. They failed to do neither. This is a Padres team that got swept out of Pittsburgh just last week. An embarrassing performance in every way.

2) The LA Angels are decimated by injuries and that'll be hard to recover from

The Angels are ravaged by the injury bug once again, and it was very telling in this Padres series. We all know about them losing Shohei Ohtani, Anthony Rendon, and Mike Trout all in one game, and that was brutal to witness, but there's more to it.

Brandon Drury, Logan O'Hoppe, Zach Neto, Gio Urshela, and Max Stassi are all on the IL. And that's just position players. Remember how dominant Matt Moore was? Remember how impressive Ben Joyce looked? Those guys are out too.

While Ohtani played yesterday and Rendon avoided the IL (for now) Trout is going to be out for at least one month after undergoing surgery for his fractured hamate. The Angels were on the outside looking in with a healthy Trout and were struggling to score. When you replace a star (yes, he's still a star) with an unproven player like Jo Adell, chances are your life won't get any easier.

The Angels failed to capitalize on the opportunities they had with runners in scoring position for pretty much the entire series outside of the ninth inning in the second game when the Padres pitcher had no command, and they've scored more than five runs just once in their 11 games since the 25-run outburst in Colorado. Their record in those games is 3-8.

The Angels hit Jo Adell cleanup last night. Eduardo Escobar batted second. This team is beyond depleted. Some reinforcements are coming, but guys like Trout, O'Hoppe, and Urshela are either out for another while still or out for the remainder of the season.

3) The LA Angels schedule doesn't get any easier

The unfortunate reality of getting swept by the Padres is San Diego was one of the easier opponents in what's a daunting month of July for the Angels. After this, they head to Los Angeles to face a Dodgers team that swept them in Anaheim when they were a lot healthier. The Angels were shut out in the 18 innings they played against the Dodgers, and that's when they had entered the series playing really well.

The all-star break comes at the perfect time for this beleaguered team, but after the break, things don't get any easier. Two prime Wild Card teams in the Astros and Yankees await in Anaheim. The Angels lost both series they've played against Houston this season and lost the lone series they played against the Bronx Bombers. Again, these happened when the Angels were mostly healthy.

The Astros don't have Yordan Alvarez and the Yankees don't have Aaron Judge, both teams are beatable, but they're not easy wins by any means.

The Halos get a little relief with back-to-back series against the Pirates and Tigers, but then end the month against the Blue Jays and Braves on the road. The Jays are another team fighting for a playoff spot and are ahead of the Angels, while the Braves have looked like the best team in baseball for much of the season, especially of late.

The Padres were eight games under .500. Only the Tigers who are currently 11 under are worse than that of all of the teams the Angels play this month. Only one, the Pirates, are under .500. The ask for this Angels team playing with the pressure of potentially losing Shohei Ohtani in just a matter of weeks and breaking a long playoff drought for a hungry fanbase, is through the roof.

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