Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Mon, Sept 14. the Los Angeles Angels took on the Seattle Mariners in the opening game of a three-game series at Angel Stadium in Anaheim. The Halos were swept in a three-game set against the Washington Nationals over the weekend and each game was a one-run loss. With five of the six games that the Angels lost on their nine-game road trip being determined by one run, some luck needed to be present in order for a win to be secured. Thankfully, Reid Detmers was coming off a win that he had in Boston and was seeking his sixth win of the season. The Angels needed to give Detmers some ample run support and that has been hard to come by for the stellar southpaw at home this season. The playoff chances for the Mariners were looking very bleak entering this game and they had their young pitching prospect in fellow lefty Kade Anderson start for them.

The game started with an early scoring chance for Seattle when J.P Crawford hit a leadoff single. Randy Arozarena came up next and he hit a ball to the left center field gap. Crawford tried to run around third base and get to home plate, but José Siri threw a good relay ball to Zach Neto, who threw the ball to home plate and Travis d’Arnaud tagged Crawford out. An incredible defensive play made to prevent a run from being scored early on. Detmers struck out the next two batters to end the top of the first in style. In the bottom of the first, the Halo hitters did well against Anderson as Mike Trout hit a single to center field and Siri hit a ball down the left field line that Trout raced home to. After the RBI double, Siri successfully stole third base and Vaughn Grissom brought him in on a sacrifice fly. The early 2-0 lead was definitely good for Detmers to work with.

Detmers continued his good style of pitching with mixing offspeed pitches with some good fastballs. With strikeouts and groundouts, Detmers continued his signature style of throwing the baseball that he has maintained for the entire second half of the season. In the bottom of the third, the Angels got more runs as Wade Meckler hit a leadoff single and Neto hit a ball into the left field corner that scored Meckler. Neto raced to third as he had an RBI triple and came home on an RBI single by Siri to make it a 4-0 lead. In the top of the fourth, Seattle created an offensive opportunity with two straight singles by Arozarena and Dominic Canzone. Cal Raleigh came up and hit a three-run shot out to right field off Detmers, who got through the fourth inning after that one mistake.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Angels loaded up the bases with Neto, Siri and Grissom on. Cooper Criswell came in for Anderson and struck out Christian Moore. But Denzer Guzman hit a 1-1 sweeper out to center field and two runs came in. Detmers pitched into the sixth inning and got a couple of strikeouts to get through the inning. The add-on runs in the fifth proved to be critical as Blake Weiman gave up a solo home run to Crawford in the seventh inning. Ryan Watson came in to pitch and got four outs as the Angels were unable to score in the next few innings.

In the top of the ninth, Ben Joyce entered to pitch and sought to get his fifth save of the season. Joyce got Josh Naylor to ground out to Grissom and then walked Lazaro Montes as a pinch-hitter. Joyce then got Cole Young to fly out to Siri and then faced Taylor Ward, who was back at the Big A for the second time this season after appearing in June with the Baltimore Orioles, as a pinch-hitter. Ward drew a full-count walk and the game-tying run was on base as Brock Rodden came in as a pinch-runner. Crawford came up representing the go-ahead run, but he hit a sinker from Joyce straight to Grissom, who caught the ball to end the game.

The Angels defeated the Mariners, whose playoff chances decreased as they fell to five and a half games behind the Houston Astros for first place in the AL West and remained six games behind the third AL Wild Card spot. Detmers had his sixth win of the season with another eight strikeout performance as he is now just one strikeout away from 200 on the season. Looking to join Frank Tanana and Chuck Finley as the only Halo lefty hurlers to have a 200-K season, Detmers will have a chance to move up on the all-time single strikeouts list in his final two starts of the season. Detmers was given the most run support in a game that he started this season and with a three-hit game from Jose Siri with two RBIs along with RBIs from Neto, Grissom and Guzman, the Angels once again won a game where they scored six runs. Also Joyce finally has the team lead in saves all to himself in surpassing Jordan Romano and Ryan Zeferjahn.

With 57 wins on the season, the Angels need to go 6-6 in their final 12 games in order to avoid their first 100-loss season in franchise history. Detmers will have two more chances to start in this season where he has not missed a single turn in the rotation due to injury. Hopefully his luck in September continues and he could get to eight wins on the season if he is fortunate enough to get run support and pitch with very few mistakes made on the mound.