Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Tue, Sept 8, the Los Angeles Angels played the second game of a three game series against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Boston had won the first four matchups of the season series against the Angels, including a 5-2 win on Labor Day. Now with 90 losses on the season and being officially eliminated from playoff contention, the Halos looked to finally give enough run support to Reid Detmers, who has been pitching so well in the second half of this 2026 MLB season but has received some of the thinnest margins to work with in return for his incredible pitching feats. Detmers has been robbed of quite a few winning decisions due to the bullpen’s inability to hold onto leads and the lineup’s lack of add-on runs. Only with four wins for the season entering this game, Detmers’ record does not reflect the low ERA and WHIP numbers that he has put up in the post-All Star Break schedule. Detmers looked to get a win against the Red Sox, who would counter with a former Angels pitcher in Patrick Sandoval, who made his Boston debut in July after returning from Tommy John Surgery that he had when he was still a Halo in Jun 2024.

The game started with both former rotation mates pitching solid first innings, with both Detmers and Sandoval giving up one hit in their first innings. In the top of the second inning, the Angels took the initiative as Vaughn Grissom got a leadoff double against his previous team and Moisés Ballesteros put down a bunt to third base that he beat out. Christian Moore came up next and he grounded into a double play, but Grissom did score to get an early run of support for Detmers, who would lock in against the Red Sox.

In the third inning, the Halos created another offensive opportunity as Denzer Guzman got a leadoff single against Sandoval, who got Travis d’Arnaud and Zach Neto out. But Mike Trout drew a full count walk against Sandoval and José Siri came up in having gone through an 0-for-29 slump in the past few weeks. Siri was the starting right fielder and was in desperate need of a hit. On an 0-2 count, Siri hit a changeup out to left field and Guzman came home to score as the ball hit the Green Monster. With runners on first and second, Grissom delivered a line drive to center field for an RBI single that scored Trout. The Angels now had a 3-0 lead over Boston and that extra run support definitely benefited Detmers.

Detmers started striking out a lot of Red Sox batters and he also didn’t give up a single hit for the rest of his outing other than a first inning single that Wilyer Abreu had against him. The Halos got another add-on run when d’Arnaud scored on a double play that Trout hit into, with two of the four runs that the team scored for Detmers being from the worst way that a team can score in baseball. Detmers’ pitch count was high, but he came back in to pitch in the bottom of the sixth and he got a ground out, strikeout and flyout to end his outing in style. With eight strikeouts and only three baserunners surrendered, Detmers was clearly in command and having one of the best starts of his season.

In the bottom of the seventh, Boston decided to take advantage of Detmers no longer being in the game as José Fermin entered to pitch. Fermin gave up a leadoff double to Trevor Story and then surrendered an RBI single to Nick Sogard. Fermin then walked Caleb Durbin and the game-tying run was coming up for the Red Sox. Fermin stayed in despite surpassing his three-batter minimum mark and struck out Andruw Monasterio, got Eli White to fly out to Kyren Paris in left field and got Connor Wong to pop out to Grissom to end the inning. Fermin’s incredible escape was definitely encouraging to see from a Halos bullpen that has struggled so much.

The bullpen continued pitching well as Tayler Saucedo and Ryan Watson pitched well in the bottom of the eighth. In the top of the ninth, the Angels decided to add on against Raymond Burgos, who gave up a two-out double to d’Arnaud(who got his second two-bagger in the game) and Neto came up and hit a cutter high into the night sky. The ball went over the Green Monster and went out of the park as Neto hit his team-leading 24th home run of the season. Trout hit a double after Neto’s blast, but would be stranded at second base. With a 6-1 lead, the Angels would not be given a save opportunity in the bottom of the ninth, but Samy Natera Jr did well to close out the game anyways.

With this result, Detmers finally achieved his fifth win of the season in being given only his second win in an incredible second half of the season. With a league-leading 1.38 ERA since Jul 17, Detmers is having one of the best stretches of his career. Along with Walbert Ureña, Detmers is part of a potential pitching tandem that could lead the team into a bright future in the starting rotation. Looking to win their fourth road series of the season, the Halos will look to get a series win at Fenway tomorrow evening as Ryan Johnson takes the mound looking to continue a good stretch of starts that he had in August and continued in the first game of this road trip in Pittsburgh. Looking to avoid their first 100-loss season in franchise history, the Angels need eight more wins to ensure that they do not hit that futility mark. With 17 games left on their schedule, that means playing .500 ball for the final few weeks of a rough season.