Angels follow familiar and unfortunate blueprint in brutal loss to the Yankees

The Los Angeles Angels have certainly found plenty of interesting ways to lose games this season. Sometimes, it has been outside of their control like when umpires screwed over Jo Adell earlier this month. However, a lot of LA's struggles have been self-inflicted either with one big mistake or a thousand cuts of inefficiency that lead to a rough stretch.

On Thursday night against the Yankees, a familiar and unfortunate trend reared its ugly head once again. Through six innings, it was a tight 2-1 game with New York up after a strong start from Patrick Sandoval. It was a very winnable game as the Yankees ended up leaving Carlos Rodón in too long.

But before that, the Angels turned to Adam Cimber in the seventh inning where he proceeded to get absolutely rocked while being incapable of finding the strike zone. Five runs and just one out recorded later, the game had turned into a rout and the Angels lost yet another back-breaking game.

Adam Cimber's implosion highlights Angels' persistent bullpen problem

The goal here isn't to pick on Cimber, although he deserves a good bit of criticism. After being both bad in 2023 and coming off a shoulder injury, LA decided to bring him aboard for this season anyways and the results have been, well, sub-par. Through 24 appearances this season, Cimber sports a 6.23 ERA with a huge jump in his walk rate largely to blame, and he definitely isn't the guy you want out there to try and keep a game close right now.

However, Cimber is part of a larger problem in that the Angels' bullpen is consistently not good. It isn't always the same guy that coughs up a lead or makes things more interesting than they should be, either. Top to bottom, other than Hunter Strickland who has been quite good, the Angels need to figure out something with this bullpen and quickly.

Given the holes elsewhere on the roster and the injuries the Angels are dealing with, there are going to be frustrating games this season without question. However, the bullpen is going to be a persistent problem without some additions and/or changes all year long with Cimber being just one of several reasons why.

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