Angels' Reid Detmers Opens Up About Struggles in Latest Outing

Maren Angus-Coombs | May 2, 2024

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The Los Angeles Angels have been on a few losing streaks this season. Usually when that happens, it's Reid Detmers' turn in the rotation to play the stopper. He has been the team's best pitcher and can possibly ignite a winning streak when he pitches well.

Detmers, who starts Saturday against the Cleveland Guardians, didn't have his ace stuff in his last outing. The left-hander allowed five runs in five-plus innings Sunday against the Minnesota Twins. He was perfect through three, then lost his command. Detmers gave up a run on three hits in the fourth and then four runs in the fifth.

“Just kind of didn’t lose command, but lost feel for certain pitches,” Detmers said of the outing. “The slider didn’t feel good today. I tried using it and kept leaving it up or bouncing it, not competitive pitches.”

The Angels lost the game 11-5, and manager Ron Washington held another team meeting. The Angels' first team meeting was held after the second game of the regular season.

“The thing that was disheartening is to watch us just fall apart on the defensive side, fall apart on the offensive side, fall apart in the pitching department,” Washington said. “The three things that are necessary to be successful, we fell apart this weekend doing.”

Washington didn't point his finger at anyone specifically. The team collectively is to blame for dropping five of six games on its just-completed homestand.

“I’m not going to throw any of my players under the bus, because I know how hard they work,” Washington said. “But I’m disappointed and I know they’re disappointed and we have to do better. We can do better and we will do better.”

The Angels defensively committed three errors and left Washington wondering what needs to happen for his squad to figure things out. After Sunday's game, he closed the clubhouse doors and spoke to his team longer than usual.

“The message is start believing in yourself,” Washington said. “Start believing in your teammate and quit being selfish. It’s easy to get selfish when you’re not performing the way you expect yourself to perform. And there’s a lot of guys in there that are not performing up to their expectations.

“Now, having said that, in the game of baseball, that happens. There’s no need to start feeling sorry for yourself when things are not going the way you would like them to go. So we’ve just got to keep getting after it the way we are getting after it. And at some point, the character that’s in that room has to come back and show up.”

Although they lost two of three games to the Phillies, a team that reached the 2023 National League Championship Series with the same core players, they were outscored 14-12 in the three games.