LA Angels: Phil Nevin blows another winnable game with poor managerial decisions

The Los Angeles Angels have had an extremely disappointing season. A season that once looked so promising with the team right in the thick of postseason contention and buying at the deadline turned into the team being completely out of the race just a couple of weeks later and playing games that mean almost nothing in September.

One thing the Angels can do is impact who makes the postseason. They play teams like the Mariners and Rangers down the stretch and I'm sure Angels fans would love nothing more than to watch their division rivals sitting at home with them.

The Angels had a golden opportunity in front of them to win a series on the road in Seattle against a Mariners team trying desperately to play meaningful games in October for a second straight year. Unfortunately, Phil Nevin's managerial decisions cost the Angels what would've been a very fun series win for the fans.

LA Angels manager Phil Nevin continues to be a problem

Phil Nevin has had a rocky first full year as the manager of the Angels. Sometimes it does feel like he takes on more blame than he should, but there really aren't any explanations he can give to make Wednesday's loss feel better.

The Angels were looking to win two of three in Seattle against a struggling but very formidible Mariners team. The odds were stacked against them with the Angels facing Seattle's ace in Luis Castillo, while the Halos were running a bullpen game.

Andrew Wantz got through two scoreless to start, and then in the third, Brett Phillips gave the Angels a lead with his second home run of the season. Unfortunately, an error made by Nolan Schanuel led to Seattle tying the game against Jose Marte in the bottom of the third. A Brandon Drury RBI double gave the Angels the lead right back in the fourth, but then Phil Nevin got too cute.

Jose Suarez, making his first appearance for the Angels since early May, pitched a clean fourth which was definitely encouraging to see. The fifth inning is where he got into some trouble. Suarez hit Ty France with a pitch to lead off, but then he bounced back to strike out Dylan Moore and J.P. Crawford. It looked like Suarez was going to find his way out of the inning, but Nevin opted to inexplicably walk Julio Rodriguez intentionally.

This was the bottom of the fifth inning with the Angels in front. Seattle had a runner on first base with two outs and his plan was to walk the dangerous Rodriguez intentionally, gift Seattle the go-ahead run on base, and then bring in Jimmy Herget to face their number three hitter Cal Raleigh.

It's bad enough that Nevin opted to walk Rodriguez intentionally when there really was no need for it, but Jimmy Herget's main issue this season has been letting inherited runners score. You bring him in with two on? To make matters even worse, Raleigh's OPS against righties is at .812 and against lefties it was at .651. Herget promptly gave up back-to-back singles to Raleigh and Teoscar Hernandez and what was once an Angels lead became a 3-2 deficit. They'd lose by that exact score.

Herget has now allowed 65% of his inherited runners to score this season and he's blown three saves in three tries. Why Nevin continues to put this guy in games with runners on base is beyond me.

Sure, the Angels should've scored more than two runs if they wanted to win, but Nevin clearly didn't put his players in the best position to succeed. The Angels had a very good shot at winning a series on the road in Seattle, and their own manager took it away from them.