What will the first month of the season tell us about the 2025 Angels?

It may seem premature, seeing as spring training games are just beginning, but the regular season is just around the corner. The Angels say they plan to compete, but is that in any way realistic? Well, the first month might give fans a clearer idea of its plausibility.

Including the opening series in March, the first month of the 2025 season will see the Angels play an even split of 5 teams with .500 or better records in 2024, and 5 who fell short. They’ll take on two division winners, three interleague opponents, and three division rivals – a big change from last season when they didn’t meet anyone from the AL West until mid-May. It’s a broad schedule which has the potential to either prove that the Angels are ready to take a step up, or to expose the flaws in their roster.  

The Angels haven’t won on opening day since 2021, when they beat a Chicago White Sox team led by Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson, who went on to win the AL Central.

My, how things have changed.

What will the first month of the season tell us about the 2025 Angels?

Both of those guys could conceivably be on the Angels lineup card this year, and as you may have heard, 2024 did not go particularly well for the Southsiders. As far as a soft opening series goes, the Angels couldn’t ask for more – a bruised and still-rebuilding opponent and a familiar environment for some recent additions.

The home opener should provide a tougher test. The Guardians made it to the ALCS last year, and are looking to take the next step. Historically, though, things couldn’t be tighter, with Cleveland holding the tiniest edge in a 339-338 record against the Angels.

Elsewhere, the Cardinals were perhaps the most confounding team of this offseason, losing veterans and adding exactly nobody on a major league deal.

The most important name to note for the Rays is Milton – as in the Hurricane that led to the team now playing 2025 in a spring training facility. Both opponents are arguably under more pressure than the Angels, who need to show they can take advantage.  

By the time the Angels finally played a divisional rival in 2024, they were 10 games under .500 and had already lost Mike Trout for the season. If either of those are the case when they head to Texas on April 11th, then the season is probably already over.

The Astros have long dominated the AL West, but got off to a shaky 10-19 start over March and April last year before righting the ship and winning the division. So, much like Yusei Kikuchi, fans will anxiously be wondering whether the first- or second-half version will turn up.

Across the state, the Rangers are only a year removed from winning it all. Their manager Bruce Bochy has a knack for getting things rolling on alternate years, but Ron Washington has plenty of reasons of his own to step up in Arlington. If the Angels can hit both Texas teams hard, and early, then suddenly the division looks pretty gettable.

Then it’s home, at last, for two series. The Giants lost Blake Snell but added Justin Verlander and Willy Adames. Otherwise, little has changed for the team that the Angels took two out of three against in 2024. PECOTA projects the Pirates to have a virtually identical record to the Angels in 2025, but their young rotation, headlined by Paul Skenes, may beg to differ.

Finally, they round out the month with a series against the Minnesota Twins (who may have been sold by then, to the envy of some Angels fans) before the first of two always fiercely competitive games in Seattle. The Angels went 8-5 against the Mariners in 2024, and with 6 of those wins coming in one-run games, this could be the moment their new closing battery of Kenley Jansen and Ben Joyce are truly put to the test. It will also be a chance for Trout to show that’s he’s back – he boasts a .333 career average away in Seattle, with 33 of his 54 homers off the Mariners coming at their own stadium.

With 19 games on the road, and only 9 at home, it's a gruelling month, but also a time to see how this new roster mix bonds and unites. There are vital wins available, and if the Angels can grab them while they’re still healthy and motivated, it could go a long way to this season being a significant step up from the last.  

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