Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Sun, Jun 28, the Los Angeles Angels played another series finale against the Athletics and they were looking for a series win against their AL West division foes. It was the annual Christmas in June series at Angel Stadium and it began in disappointing fashion with the A’s defeating the Halos 9-3 on Fri, Jun 26 with a seven-run fifth inning given up by Walbert Ureña. The Angels bounced back as they scored a few late inning runs to win 5-2 in the middle game of the series. Now with the series on the line, this Sunday Leadoff game broadcasted on Peacock featured a pitching matchup of Aaron Civale(ATH) versus Sam Aldegheri, who had a couple of rough starts leading up to this one.

The game started with both pitchers throwing solid first innings. In the top of the second inning, Aldegheri got into a bit of a jam when he gave up two straight singles to Lawrence Butler and Max Muncy the younger. But he got the next two batters out to end the inning and escape the jam. The A’s lineup was less imposing due to Nick Kurtz not being in the starting order and Jacob Wilson and Zach Gelof being out with injuries. In the bottom of the second, the Halos bats woke up as Vaughn Grissom got a one-out single and Wade Meckler drew a walk. With two runners on, Oswald Peraza came up and he hit a ball up the middle that was fielded by Jeff McNeil, who threw the ball across his body to Joey Meneses at first base. The ball came toward the glove of Meneses, but he was unable to secure it as Peraza beat out the throw and the bases were loaded. Josh Lowe came up to bat against Civale and on a two-strike count he fouled off a ball that contacted a fragile region of his body. After getting the wind back inside himself, Lowe hit an inside cutter out to right field and the ball sailed over the right field wall for a grand slam. It was Lowe’s first career grand slam on his sixth home run of the season at the big league level. The Halos were up 4-0 on one mighty swing from Lowe, who had probably his best moment of this tough 2026 season. Civale gave up a single to Tyler Heineman on the next at-bat, but he retired Zach Neto and Denzer Guzman to end the inning.

With a four-run lead, Aldegheri pitched mostly well for the rest of the afternoon as he only gave up a few hits to the Athletics, who did score one run off him on a sacrifice fly by Meneses in the top of the fifth. Aldegheri was done after five innings and the bullpen would take over for him. José Fermin threw two stellar innings and then Ryan Zeferjahn entered to pitch in the top of the eighth. Zeferjahn got into a jam when he walked the first two batters he faced in the inning. After a modest mound visit by Mike Maddux, Zeferjahn struck out the next two batters he faced. With Kurtz coming up to pinch-hit, Kurt Suzuki decided to make a pitching change and brought in Samy Natera Jr for a lefty-lefty matchup. Natera threw a fastball down the middle that Kurtz hit high, but not deep enough to be a game-tying three-run shot. Jose Siri made the catch in shallow center field to end the scoring threat.

The Angels’ bats were unable to provide any more scoring other than Lowe’s grand slam, but thankfully they didn’t need to worry about that. The bullpen took care of everything and Natera got the save after grinding through the A’s order in the top of the ninth. The Halos won their first series of the season against the Athletics and they also won their fourth consecutive series at home. They hadn’t achieved that since the 2022 season and the Angels have won five of their past six series on their home soil in Anaheim. The home record for the team is 12-6 since May 22 and in spite of being 13 games under .500, the Halos are only six and a half games behind the Texas Rangers for first place in the AL West. With only two weeks left until the All-Star Break, the Angels have a chance to make up some ground on divisional foes as they are slated to play the Seattle Mariners in a three-game road series at T-Mobile Park next. After a three-game home series on the Fourth of July Weekend against the Boston Red Sox, the Halos will travel to face the Rangers in Arlington, Tex and the Minnesota Twins to conclude their pre-All Star Break scheydle.

Aldegheri now has three wins as a pitcher at the big league level and his next start is slated to come on the Fourth of July against the Red Sox. Mike Trout is also getting closer to returning from the injured list as he has been doing some baseball activity on the field. With the lowest deficit from first place of any last-place team in baseball, the Halos will still be playing hard as the second half of the MLB season is underway. A good Christmas in June series victory is a delightful way to conclude a stretch of playing games mostly in the Pacific Time Zone for the entire month, although six more games of that type will be right ahead for them.