Zach Neto's demolition of Yankees gives hope for a brighter Angels future

Eric Cole

Los Angeles Angels v New York Yankees - Game Two / Adam Hunger/GettyImages

The Los Angeles Angels' doubleheader against the Yankees on Wednesday was a bit of a mixed bag. Davis Daniel got beat up in the first game and the offense was unable to overcome the deficit, but the second game was much more fun as LA jumped all over Yankees' rookie Will Warren to give the Angels a much-needed rout of one of the AL's biggest boogeymen.

However, one constant for the Angels was the outstanding play of Zach Neto.

In both halves of the doubleheader, Neto homered, including a grand slam in the second game that effectively ended the contest on the spot. Neto's combined line from the twin bill ended up being 4-for-9 with two homers and 8 RBI. Not bad for a day's work, to say the least.

Neto's performance against the Yankees is only part of a larger improvement Neto has made in recent weeks that bodes extremely well for him and the Angels going forward.

Zach Neto's hot streak is positioning him as a future cornerstone for the Angels

After considerable hype coming into the season after a strong spring, Neto got off to a bit of a rough start to 2024. However, the Angels and Neto seemed to isolate a big part of his problem and started implementing changes to his swing (specifically his leg kick) to try and get him going while preventing opposing pitchers from taking advantage of his mechanics.

It took a little while for the changes to bear fruit, but it is hard to argue with the results now. Since the beginning of July, Neto is slashing .293/.386/.515 with five homers, nine stolen bases, and 21 RBI. More importantly, in his 30 games over that same span, Neto has only struck out 18 times thanks in large part to the adjustments.

In an ideal world. Neto would have worked out his swing issues in the minor leagues. However, the Angels clearly aren't changing their questionable aggressive promotion strategy, so Neto has had to work on his craft on the fly. Now that it looks like he has finally figured things out, Anaheim's future looks a little brighter.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.