The Los Angeles Angels will return home to Anaheim to start a 10-game homestand on Friday night following a 1-5 road trip that concluded with getting swept in three games by the Cleveland Guardians.
The Angels, who own the worst record in the majors at 16-28, have lost 18 of their last 23 games and are on pace for their first 100-loss season in franchise history. So, how can things get any worse?
How about facing two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the first round of the Freeway Series?
The left-handed Snell (0-1, 12.00 ERA), who began the season on the injured list with left shoulder soreness, will make just his second start of the season. He will oppose Angels right-hander Jack Kochanowicz (2-2, 3.97) in the opener of the three-game series.
Snell is 2-2 with a 2.89 ERA in five career starts against the Angels but hasn’t faced them since July 3, 2023. In that game, he helped pitch the San Diego Padres to a 10-3 victory, allowing seven hits over five scoreless innings while striking out seven.
Snell, 33, went just three innings in his 2026 debut last Saturday, allowing five runs (four earned) on six hits in a 7-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves. He walked two and struck out five, departing after throwing 77 pitches, 50 for strikes.
“Obviously frustrated,” Snell said afterward. “The goal is to give up no runs, so giving up five is pretty frustrating. But I learned a lot. The zone’s smaller than it was last year. … Just missing a little bit. But I feel really good. The stuff is really good.”
He’ll face an Angels offense that has scored two runs or less in 14 of the last 23 games, including in all five losses on the just-completed road trip.
Kochanowicz has faced the Dodgers once in his career, allowing one run on five hits over 6 2/3 innings in a 6-2 victory on May 16, 2025. That was part of the first of two three-game sweeps of the Dodgers last season by the Angels, who are riding a seven-game winning streak against their Southern California rivals.
First-year Angels manager Kurt Suzuki remains optimistic his team can its season around.
“The only thing that we can do is come here every single day, prepare the best we can, get ready to play in all assets of the game and go out there and perform,” Suzuki told The Orange County Register. “And sometimes you’re going to win, sometimes you’re going to lose.
“These guys have been doing a good job preparing themselves to play. It’s just not coming on the positive end there. Come back for the Dodger series, do the same thing and see what happens.”
The Dodgers come in off a 5-2 victory over visiting San Francisco on Thursday, earning a split of their four-game series with the Giants.
Ex-Angel Shohei Ohtani received a scheduled day off after striking out eight over seven shutout innings on the mound in a 4-0 win on Wednesday.
Mookie Betts also took the day off as the Dodgers moved back into first place in the National League West, a half-game ahead of the San Diego Padres.
Will Smith, batting leadoff for the first time in his career, hit a home run in his first at-bat, and Teoscar Hernandez went 3-for-4 with a double and a run to lead the Dodgers offensively.
–Field Level Media
