On Tues. July 29, 2025, the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels played in a long dragged-out game that was more than three hours in length due to long at-bats, delays such as pitching changes and replay reviews and even an intense benches-clearing incident near the end of the game after Mike Trout got hit with a fast pitch on his elbow. But the game was well-worth attending with my parents and a good family friend as the Halos found a way to grind out an important win against a divisional foe. This Tuesday night game was unique in many ways and it shows that a baseball game can be as unpredictable as any other future event in a person’s life that can’t be foreseen. Let’s just say that wackiness has a special place on the ballfield and there were quite a few errors in this game that actually had a massive impact on some of the runs scored by both teams.

This game was huge because the Angels are looking to track down the Rangers and a few other teams in the American League Wild Card chase. After splitting four-game series with the Seattle Mariners, the Halos were looking to win this series against Texas in order to gain ground on them in the standings. Yusei Kikuchi was set to start for the Angels and the Rangers countered with Patrick Corbin. The starting lineups for both teams were good and balanced, but one notable character was not in the lineup for Texas. Corey Seager, who is a very good batter with incredibly dominant stats against the Halos, was not in the batting order for the Rangers, who wanted to give him a night off following a lot of games played in a row. Plus, with Kikuchi on the mound as a southpaw, they had more credence to bench him. Oddly enough, they had another left-handed batter take Seager’s spot at shortstop as utility man Josh Smith was the guy playing defensively in between second and third base in this game. The Angels had already defeated the Rangers in the series opener, which they won 6-4 in spite of a defensive error by Gustavo Campero in right field that led to two runs for the Rangers. Campero redeemed himself and had a couple of hits in contributing to offensive rallies in the game. For the third straight game, Campero was starting in right field, a position that has seen a lot of different players in it so far this season for the Halos. With Jorge Soler and Chris Taylor placed on the injured list, Campero was recalled recently from Triple-A along with Scott Kingery to fill those roster spots. Campero was batting in the 8 spot in the lineup in between Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Newman.

A big play occurred right away in the top of the 1st inning when Kikuchi gave up a leadoff single to left-fielder Sam Haggerty on a ball that was nearly caught by Jo Adell in center field. On the very next at-bat, Kikuchi gave up another hit to Texas center fielder Wyatt Langford, who belted the ball to left field and the ball was fielded by Taylor Ward. Haggerty tried to make it into third base in gaining an extra base, with Ward throwing the ball towards third so that Newman could field it and try to tag Haggerty out. The ball made it into Newman’s glove as Haggerty slid in and Newman applied the tag and kept it on, thinking that Haggerty could have come off the bag and not have any body part attached to it. The third base umpire Junior Valentine ruled Haggerty safe, but the Halos wanted the replay center to take a look at the play. Ray Montgomery made an early gamble in challenging the call, but it paid off as the visuals on the big screen clearly showed that Haggerty was off the base as the glove of Newman was on the thigh of the runner. After the review, the call on the field was overturned as crew chief Marvin Hudson announced that the runner was out and the Angels would maintain their challenge. That out was huge for Kikuchi, who got the next two batters out on lazy fly balls to end the inning in style.

The Halos responded right away offensively as Zach Neto got hit by a pitch and stole second base when Mike Trout was up to bat. Trout struck out, but Nolan Schanuel drew a walk to have runners on first and second. The clean-up batter Ward struck out swinging on the next at-bat and it was up to Jo Adell to bring in a run or two here. On a 3-1 count, Adell hit a sinker thrown by Corbin to the opposite field and Neto would come in to score easily. But when Adolis Garcia tried to throw Adell out at first base, the ball hit off the glove of first baseman Ezequiel Duran and it rolled towards home plate. Schanuel saw this from third base and made a break for it, sprinting to home plate as the catcher Kyle Higashioka looked to secure the ball. Nobody was covering the plate when Higashioka deviated away from his position, so Schanuel scored on that early error. One RBI was awarded to Adell, who stayed at first base. A Luis Rengifo strikeout ended an exciting first inning with the Halos up early 2-0.

The second inning didn’t feature much action, other than a couple of Kikuchi strikeouts and a fielding error by Josh Smith on a broken-bat ball hit by Newman that had him reach with two outs. The score remained the same as the third inning came. The top half of the inning featured a bunt pop out and strike out, but was followed by a two-out single and a fielding error by Newman on a ball hit by Marcus Semien. With runners on first and second, the Rangers were posing a slight threat, but thankfully Kikuchi got Garcia to fly out to right field to end the inning(Gustavo Campero had a hell of a time tracking down some balls hit awfully close down the right field line over the short wall in the RF corner at the Big A). A double play that was preceded by another Trout strikeout characterized the bottom of the third and that was all for inning number three of this game.

The top of the fourth was grueling for Kikuchi, who had to throw over 25 pitches as a nine-pitch at-bat against Josh Jung ended in a flyout, a shorter five-pitch at-bat against Jonah Heim resulted in another flyout, and an 8-pitch at-bat versus the catcher Higashioka ended with him hitting a solo home run to put Texas on the board. Kikuchi gave up a single on a one-pitch at-bat to Smith, but then settled down to get Duran to line out to Ward in left field to end the inning. The bottom of the fourth featured an epic leadoff triple hit by Adell, who was unable to score on the next at-bat due to the infield being in on a ground ball hit by Rengifo. Travis d’Arnaud came up and drew a walk, putting runners on the corners for Campero, who ended up hitting a fly ball to shallow right field that should have been caught by Adolis Garcia. Instead, Garcia ended up not gloving the ball and it would result in a fielder’s choice that had d’Arnaud out at second base and Adell scored from third. Campero had a very odd and bizarre RBI fielder’s choice that sure looked like a fielding error by Garcia, but the Angels now had a 3-1 lead. Unfortunately, Campero got thrown out trying to steal second base when Newman was batting to end the inning.

If you think this game was breezing by at this point, then the next couple innings would tell a different story as a long sequence of events occurred that featured replay reviews, mound visits, pitching changes and a whole lot of scoring. So, buckle up, things are about to get even stranger.

In the top of the 5th, Kikuchi continued his pitch command struggles as he hit Haggerty the leadoff hitter on the second pitch of the at-bat. He then gave up a quick single to Langford and proceeded to strike out Semien. But Garcia came up and got a redemption hit for his two errors as he swung at the first pitch thrown by Kikuchi and the ball went out to left field past the glove of Neto. Haggerty sprinted around to score and the Rangers were now down 3-2. Pitching coach Barry Enright came out along with Kikuchi’s interpreter to discuss getting out of this jam. This was only like the first mound visit for the Halos, while Texas seemed like it was abusing its amount of mound visits early on with Mike Maddux coming to the mound to help out Patrick Corbin in tight situations(some of which will be described later). Kikuchi was in a tight situation and needed some luck to get out of this inning with the score still in the Angels’ favor. The time-consuming issue for Kikuchi was that he was using his “disengagements” per each at-bat to calm himself down, either making a pickoff throw or stepping off the mound before the pitch clock expired. Yusei would do this twice in the next at-bat versus Josh Jung, where on a full count for his third disengagement he ended up throwing the ball backwards toward second base to try and pick off Langford. The second base umpire called Langford out, but Bruce Bochy used his team’s challenge to review the play. After a long look, it looked like Zach Neto’s glove had tagged Langford out on the helmet before the runner’s hand touched the base. The ruling on the field was confirmed and the runner was out. A big second out there by Kikuchi, who got Jung to swing and miss at a 3-2 fastball to end the inning. A masterful job by Yusei to get out of the jam and still be in line for the win. The Angels’ bullpen was getting Connor Brogdon ready just in case Kikuchi wasn’t able to escape, so it would appear that Kikuchi was done after throwing roughly 95 pitches across five innings.

The bottom of the fifth showed some resistance by the Halos’ bats to try and extend the lead. Trout got a two-out single and then Schanuel came up to bat. On the second pitch thrown by Corbin, Schanuel hit the ball a long way and it nearly hit over the yellow line on the right field pavilion’s wall. But Adolis Garcia made a stunning, HR-robbing catch to end the inning. Many people in the stands thought it was a home run since the ball appeared to hit off the “bullseye” in right field. Montgomery requested a crew-chief review to make sure Garcia actually caught the ball. After a long review, Marvin Hudson announced that the call on the field was confirmed and that Garcia had made the catch. So, that was rough seeing Schanuel robbed of a two-run shot that would have extended the lead to three runs. The sixth inning would be the really long inning, and by really long, I mean so long that it stretched into the 9 pm time frame. That’s surprising, considering that the pitch clock is supposed to “speed things up”. But you never know what kind of(and how many) delays will occur that can literally slow down and stop the clock. So, I’ll try to be as punctual as possible in describing this long string of events that occurred in the sixth inning of this Tuesday night baseball game.

The first thing that was weird to start out the sixth inning was that Kikuchi returned out to the mound in spite of his already heavy load of pitches thrown. This appeared to be a move to give the bullpen more rest after they had to pitch a lot of innings the night before. Kikuchi ended up getting a lucky line out by Jonah Heim to center field, but then gave up an 0-2 single to Kyle Higashioka. Now with a runner on first and Kikuchi near 100 pitches, Ray Montgomery came out of the dugout but he signaled the team’s Japanese interpreter to come out to discuss strategy with Kikuchi. This was one of those “Wash Magic” visits that Ron Washington has been famous for making during his time as manager of this team and something that Montgomery was continuing in Washington’s absence. Kikuchi was able to convince Montgomery to keep him in the game for at least one more batter, as if he was able to have the infield defense turn a double play behind him the inning would be over. But against Josh Smith, another odd delay happened when Kikuchi came tumbling off the mound on a bunted ball that went foul. The head trainer Mike Frostad, Montgomery, Enright and Kikuchi’s interpreter came out to check on Yusei, who was fine after falling off the mound. But anytime a pitcher has a ball hit them or falls off the mound, a medical timeout is usually taken. Teams treat their pitchers like they’re made of glass and that could be true with their pitching arms. After throwing one or two test pitches, Kikuchi was alright and he would stay in to complete the at-bat. But that delay would come back to hurt him as he threw a ball out of the zone to make the count full and on the next pitch Smith hit a slider to right field for a single. With runners on first and second and action occurring in the bullpen, Montgomery decided to take Kikuchi out and bring in the Halos’ first reliever of the game.

Brock Burke came in to pitch and faced off against Ezequiel Duran, who hit a 1-1 fastball to left field and Ward fielded the ball on a bounce. But when he threw it in, Higashioka was already set to score and the ball would deflect off the gloves of both Zach Neto and Luis Rengifo as the cut-off men. The ball found its way to Schanuel, who tried to throw the ball to d’Arnaud at home plate so that Smith could be tagged out. But Schanuel double-clutched the ball and by the time it was thrown, Smith was sliding head-first into home plate. Smith evaded the tag from d’Arnaud and touched the tip of the plate. The umpire ruled him safe and the Rangers had taken a 4-3 lead. Kikuchi was not going to get the win and the Halos had squandered another lead. Thankfully, Burke, as the most-used reliever on the team and in the American League, was able to get out of the jam with Duran at first and got Haggerty to hit into a double play with Neto throwing it to Rengifo, who fired the ball to Schanuel to end the inning. Texas had gotten the lead and now the Angels’ bats had to respond.

The bottom of the 6th would show a new pitcher coming into the game for Texas. Jon Gray, the experienced starting pitcher now being used as reliever, was coming in to pitch with the middle of the Halos’ order due up. Ward flied out to start the inning and then Adell drew a walk to get on base. Rengifo struck out swinging and with two outs, this inning was destined to end. But there was something else on the horizon and it would be amazing for the Angels. Travis d’Arnaud came up next and drew a walk on five pitches to give Gustavo Campero a chance to get a clutch hit. Campero took the first two pitches for balls and then he hit a slider to center field, where Wyatt Langford tried to make a catch on the ball by sliding feet first, but that was a mistake as the ball bounced in front of the center fielder and went over his head. Adell scored as d’Arnaud was halted by third base coach Bo Porter and Campero slid into second base with an RBI double that tied the game up at 4. The Angels weren’t done yet as they would use a pinch-hitter in place of Kevin Newman. Yoán Moncada came in to pinch-hit from the left side of the plate in making his first appearance since he suffered a hand injury in a Saturday night game against the Mariners. Moncada was looking to give the Halos the lead and he did just that by swinging at the first pitch thrown by Gray after another mound visit. The ball went out to right field and both runners scored to give the Halos a 6-4 lead. A big two-run single by Moncada wasn’t the end of this rally as Neto came up and hit a slider to left field, where Haggerty slipped when trying to come near the ball, which bounced in front of him and he placed his glove up to deflect the ball. If that glove deflection play didn’t happen, there was a chance for Neto to go to third for a triple or potentially go all the way home for an inside-the-park home run. Instead, Neto had an RBI double that scored Moncada to give the Angels a 7-4 lead. This was now a four-run bottom of the sixth that had changed the complexion of this game. After Trout drew a walk that featured a steal of third base by Neto, Bruce Bochy went to his bullpen and brought in reliever Caleb Boushley to finish this inning. The damage had already been done as Schanuel was robbed of an RBI hit by a jumping catch by Jung at third base. An incredibly long sixth inning that featured six runs combined and a lot of delays.

This game was entering the 7th inning and the time was past 9 pm. Now most people who leave the game at around this time after “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” is sung depart with the time being 8:30 pm or sometime in that time frame. But this game was a long one, so not that many people left this sparsely-attended Tuesday night game so early. But there would be folks departing sooner rather than later to “beat the traffic”, even though they create it themselves. It’s no fault of their own that those early leavers wanted to leave at their apportioned time because this game was taking so long. And it appeared that the Rangers were violating the mound visit rule or that the umpiring crew was not enforcing it. Ever since the 2017 offseason, MLB has sought to crack down on the “dead time” in between at-bats and pitches by limiting the amount of mound visits that a team has during the majority of a game, later adding the pitch-timer to speed up games and putting in disengagement limits for every at-bat to limit “lollygagging” by pitchers. The mound visit limit is four per every eight innings of action, but it felt like Mike Maddux and Kyle Higashioka were pushing the limits of that rule. It felt like they were out on the mound more than four times, and definitely more than five times, in the first six innings of this game. It appeared that the Rangers were out of mound visits and yet home plate umpire/crew chief Marvin Hudson was not enforcing it. According to the rulebook, if a team exceeds their amount of mound visits early, then the home plate umpire “will have discretion to grand a brief visit at the catcher’s request if a cross-up has occurred between the pitcher and catcher”. But that’s basically pretending that PitchCom doesn’t exist, which it does, to communicate properly without having those signs stolen by the opposition. However, there could be PitchCom device malfunctions and timeouts are usually taken to allow a person to come out of the pitching team’s dugout to give a new PitchCom device to the pitcher and/or catcher. Oddly enough, there were no delays of that sort during this game. So, the Angels didn’t really violate that mound visit limit but it sure felt like Texas did. And there should be an actual penalty as to when a team has an unauthorized mound visit after exceeding that limit, such as an automatic ball to the batter or a balk or something like that because MLB can’t go on like this forever. This only bores out the fans on both sides and creates boos onto the visiting team by the home crowd in a tradition as old as people feeling like their time is being wasted with these useless mound visits. “Boo and you shall receive” seems to be the way that MLB is going when it comes to implementing rules meant to speed up the pace of games, so they will continue to cave to their angry fans who value the flow of the game more than the beauty of it. Anyway, back to the breakdown of this game.

Reid Detmers came in to pitch in the top of the 7th inning, as he would get Langford to fly out to right field and then Semien reached on an infield single. Detmers then got Garcia to strike out swinging on a wild pitch that advanced Semien to second base. Garcia could not go to first due to the rule that if a wild pitch occurs on a strikeout with a runner on first base, then the batter who struck out cannot advance on the wild pitch. With two outs and a runner at second base, Detmers got Jung to strike out to end the inning. The bottom of the 7th was as empty as the top half, with the only dramatic moment being Rengifo getting hit by a pitch thrown by Boushley. Mike Frostad came out to check on Rengifo, who got hit in the wrist and looked like he was in some pain. But he was alright and made his way to first base. d’Arnaud popped out to end the 7th inning with the score still 7-4 Halos.

In the top of the 8th, Connor Brogdon came in and got Heim to ground out to start the inning. Then, Higashioka came up and hit a 2-2 fastball to left center field for another solo home run. Another multi-HR game by a catcher that I had witnessed occur against the Angels this year as Texas was only down 7-5 now. Thankfully, Brogdon got Smith to fly out and forced pinch-hitter Joc Pederson to ground out to first to conclude the inning with a multi-run lead still favoring the Halos. In the bottom of the 8th, some defensive changes were made by the Rangers, who had Evan Carter come in to play center field and Langford was pushed over to left field. Sam Haggerty was out of the game and Pederson came in to play first base after pinch-hitting for Duran. Boushley remained in to pitch in his second full inning and he started the inning by walking Campero, who would steal second base on the ensuing at-bat by Moncada. A productive groundout occurred for Moncada as Campero moved to third base. Bochy came out of the dugout to take Boushley out of the game and bring in another right-handed reliever in Shawn Armstrong, who would have a hard time commanding his pitches. On a 1-2 count, Armstrong hit Neto with a 93-mph fastball and there were runners on the corners for Trout now. The fans didn’t like seeing Neto get plunked for a second time in the game, but what occurred next would really get the crowd fired up.

After taking a sinker for a strike, Trout got hit in the elbow by a 92-mph fastball and the bases were now loaded. But the fans were ticked off at Armstrong for hitting two straight batters. Trout didn’t like that either and shouted at the Rangers dugout. This prompted both benches to clear and come around where Trout was walking and getting checked out by Frostad. This was nothing more than a benches-clearing incident and not a brawl in any matter as both teams’ bullpens came out onto the field as well. After some verbal jawing, everyone went back to their seating areas and Trout would be alright, staying in to be at first base. The umpires got together, but didn’t issue any warnings to either bench. Armstrong continued to pinch inside against Schanuel and the fans in the seats were still incensed by this. Schanuel hit a good ball out to left center field that was tracked down by Langford, but the ball was deep enough to advance all the runners. Campero scored, while Neto and Trout took an extra base. Some good baserunning had the Angels up by three runs again and a chance for the margin to be increased. But Ward struck out to end the inning. If the lead had gotten any bigger, the Halos would have gone to a different reliever. But surprisingly enough, for a third straight day, they went to their closer in Kenley Jansen, who was seeking his third straight save.

The Angels could have gone with a different reliever to close out this game, but with a series win on the line, Jansen was coming in to pitch for the third straight day and the fourth time in the last five games. Jansen hasn’t gotten as many save opportunities as plenty of other good closers have and there have been rumors that the Halos might seek to deal him at the trade deadline. But Jansen came in to take care of business to close out the Rangers. Kenley struck out Evan Carter and then got Langford to fly out to left field. Semien ended up getting an infield single and beating out a fantastic throw by Neto that almost ended the game. But on the next pitch, Jansen got Garcia to fly out to Campero to end the game. The Halos had won this long, hard-fought game with the Rangers and had won this series against Texas in taking the first two games of the three-game set. In spite of the long delays and lapses in action, the Angels found a way to win and get their third straight victory on this long homestand.

The game ended right before 10 pm, something that hasn’t occurred for a game that I have attended at Angel Stadium in a long time. Like, before the pitch timer was placed into the game. With this game not even going into extra innings, it was definitely the longest nine-inning game of the season at the Big A. But it was well worth it to see a big win by the Halos, who are looking to inch closer to the Rangers and other teams in the AL Wild Card standings and pass them. This win is also important to the overall head-to-head record between both divisional foes, as any potential tiebreakers for playoff spots are determined by head-to-head records and other stats. The Angels will seek to extend this winning stretch at home in their current stretch of playing 25 out of 28 games in the state of California, with only three of those games being away from Anaheim. But this game will loom large for whatever the front office decides to do at the trade deadline and any improvements that they make to the roster. August is coming and the Halos are seeking to have their best stretch in the dog days of summer in ten years. Hopefully a lot of home games can help bolster their record above the .500 plateau and they can be serious contenders for a playoff spot come September.