SEATTLE — Taylor Ward had planned a busy afternoon for his “day off.”
The Angels’ left fielder was not in the lineup for the first time this season Wednesday. He said he planned to spend the bottom of every inning, while the Angels were in the field, in the indoor batting cage trying to figure out what’s gone wrong at the plate lately.
“Frustrated,” Ward said. “Really just missing pitches right now.”
Ward was hitting .189 with a .623 OPS. He’s still hit six homers, which is slightly ahead of his normal pace, but little else has gone right offensively.
Ward has struck out in 23.5% of his plate appearances, which is around the major-league average and in line with his normal numbers. However, 10 of those 28 strikeouts have been called third strikes, which is a higher rate than usual.
On Tuesday night, Ward struck out looking at sweeper that was well within the strike zone. It came when the Angels had a potential rally in the eighth inning.
“The borderline pitches, I’m cool with taking those,” Ward said. “If they’re painted, I think over time, they’ll even out. But if the ball is fully in the zone, I need to take a hack at that for sure. Like my last at-bat last night, I need to foul that pitch off or take a swing at it. So there’s no excuse for that. I think it’s just the way things go sometimes. I think I’m seeing the ball well, except for maybe that last one last night.”
Ward has been slightly more passive than usual, swinging at 41.7% of the pitches he’s seen. He’s swung at 58.6% of the pitches he’s seen in the strike zone, which is the lower than his career average of 62%. The major-league average is 66.2%.
All of these are relatively small differences, and it’s still early enough that things could change quickly.
Ward said a fix to his mechanics can help him see the ball better.
“I’m stepping in the bucket,” Ward said. “My front shoulder has just kind of taken off. In the past, I’ve really stayed in there longer with my front shoulder. So that’s just another thing we work on in the cage, and hopefully that allows me to stay on pitches better and see them longer.”
Ward said he doesn’t think that’s still a residue of when he was hit in the face by a pitch, suffering multiple fractures, in July 2023. He admitted that getting hit again in 2024 caused him problems for about a month, but doesn’t believe that’s the current issue.
“There hasn’t creeped in much thought about getting hit,” Ward said. “I’m just mechanically not putting myself in a good position to see it for a long time. So I just need to get back to the drawing board and figure out how I’m going to stay in there longer and see it longer.”
ROTATION FLIP
The Angels shuffled their rotation for the upcoming series against the Detroit Tigers.
Kyle Hendricks would have been in line to start the opener, but he’s been pushed back to the third game, on Saturday.
Yusei Kikuchi will now start Thursday, followed by José Soriano, Hendricks and Jack Kochanowicz. Tyler Anderson would start the first game of the following series, next Tuesday.
Manager Ron Washington said Kikuchi’s relatively short outing Saturday – 66 pitches – allowed them to bring him back on four days’ rest and rearrange the order.
By aligning the pitchers this way, the Angels split up Hendricks and Tyler Anderson, who are both finesse pitchers without much velocity. They also split up Soriano and Kochanowicz, who are both pitch-to-contact sinker specialists.
STAY GOLDEN
Starting Thursday, the Angels will play 26 consecutive games in California, the longest such streak in franchise history. Their only road games in that Golden State span will be against the Padres, Dodgers and Athletics. It will be a welcome respite for a team that has played only nine home games, and only three of 20 road games on the West Coast.
“Hopefully this gives us a chance to get back and get things in order and start really grinding and playing the game the way we know we can play,” Washington said.
While the travel will be minimal, the Dodgers and Padres are two of the best teams in the National League. The Tigers and New York Yankees, two of the best teams in the American League, come to Angel Stadium in May.
NOTES
The Angels were out doing bunting drills on the field before Wednesday’s game. Normally they bunt against a pitching machine, but the Angels had 39-year-old pitching coach Barry Enright throwing to them in order to give the drill a more realistic feel. Washington said he’d like to see his players try to bunt for hits more often. They haven’t been in position lately to make use of the sacrifice bunt because they’ve mostly been trailing by multiple runs. …
Second-base prospect Christian Moore had his second straight three-hit game Tuesday at Double-A. Moore was hitting .156 with a .442 OPS through his first 13 games, but in the next seven games he hit .360 with a 1.220 OPS, including his first homer of the season. He has struck out just six times in 32 plate appearances in the recent stretch.
UP NEXT
Tigers (RHP Casey Mize, 4-1, 2.12) at Angels (LHP Yusei Kikuchi, 0-4, 4.31), 6:38 p.m. Thursday, FanDuel Sports Network West, 830 AM