Los Angeles Angels Player Grades: Who Excelled in May?

A brutal start to the month saw the Angels lose 8 games in a row including an absolute beatdown sweep by the Dodgers. But the team rallied to win 6 of their final 9 and some players excelled while the team went 11-17 in May.

Let's take a look at who played well for the Halos in the month of May.

Walbert Urena leads the Dean's list.

Heading into the season the Angels had serious question marks in the starting rotation. Walbert Urena was not even part of the Opening Day rotation but he is getting his chance and making the best of it.

In 6 May starts, Urena pitched 33 innings with a 1.64 ERA. He struck out 28 while walking 15 which is not an ideal ratio but Urena consistently creates soft contact. He induced 5 double plays and batters only hit .218 when putting the ball in play.

Walbert Urena posseses some serious upside and a pitch mix that resembles Jose Soriano's. Giving him time with Mike Maddux appears to be paying off.

Oswald Peraza is on the Honor Roll.

Sometimes a player just needs a chance to play every day and Oswald Peraza is finally getting that chance. He is excelling on both sides of the ball. In May Peraza made multiple highlight reel defensive plays and proved again that he deserves more playing time.

At the dish, Peraza notched 33 total bases in 24 games. He also came up big in big moments. His slash line for the month of May is a very respectable .274/.329/.452. He had 3 home runs and 6 extra base hits.

This does not appear to be a fluke as his batting average on balls in play is .340, which is very reasonable for a player with his footspeed. The only thing keeping Peraza from having straight A's is his 20 strikeouts to only 2 walks.

Sam Bachman is Valedectorian.

For the early part of the season the Angels bullpen was taking some serious heat for blowing leads. Lacking a true anchor, the unit was a mix of underwhelming arms without much separation. Enter Sam Bachman.

Perry Minasian's first ever draft pick took a long time to get to this point, but Sam Bachman was absolutely nails in the month of May. Take a look at these numbers and be astonished:

10 Games

13 Innings pitched

14 Strikeouts

1 Run allowed.

Yes, a single run across 13 frames, good for an ERA of 0.69. Sam Bachman is a big reason why the Angels won many of the games they did and why the bullpen as a whole is performing better lately.

Chase Silseth also made the Dean's List.

Chase Silseth has become manager Kurt Suzuki's go to fire stopper and it is paying off. In May, Silseth got into 10 games but only pitched 8.1 innings. He did not give up a single run. He walked only 3 while striking out 9.

Silseth and Bachman are combining to finally bring some big league value to the all pitcher draft of 2021. Between the two they contributed over 20 innings of high leverage relief and only allowed a single run.

For an Angels team that is clearly looking torward the future, the fact the younger players are leading the team in May is a good sign.

Add us as a preferred source on Google