ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Vaughn Grissom was sitting in the dugout watching his team get no-hit when he noticed something change.
Late in the May 18 game against Athletics right-hander J.T. Ginn, it looked to Grissom, who wasn’t playing that day, like a switch flipped. Suddenly, the quality of the at-bats improved.
“It seemed like everyone got short, and it just seemed like a better group ball club,” Grissom recalled Saturday.
The game ended with Adam Frazier breaking up the no-hitter with a two-strike single into center, and then Zach Neto hit a walk-off homer to center.
The next day, with the encouragement of hitting coach Brady Anderson, Grissom spoke in the daily hitters’ meeting about what he had seen the night before. Other players joined in and shared their thoughts. There was also talk of how the Dodgers had just scored 31 runs against them in three games with only four homers. They had drawn walks and sprayed the ball around the field.
Nearly two weeks later, some around the Angels look at that meeting as a turning point in their collective offensive approach. It hasn’t been all good. They’ve still had some bad offensive games since then, but the overall trajectory has been noticeably better.
The Angels have had more hits than strikeouts in five of the last 10 games. They had done it just 15 times in the first 48 games. The Angels were hitting .225 with a 26% strikeout rate before that meeting, and in the next 10 games they hit .248 with a 22% strikeout rate.
On May 22, they faced Texas Rangers’ ace Jacob deGrom and scored nine runs (six against deGrom) while getting 13 hits and striking out three times. Even in Friday night’s loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, the Angels had 10 hits and eight strikeouts. And six of the hits went to the opposite field, as well as many of their outs.
“We’re at the point in the year where people are starting to find their groove, or find their swing,” Grissom said. “We’ve got just enough at-bats in now where we know what we’re trying to do. We know what works. It’s just a matter of executing. You’re still going to fail. You’re still going to chase. But I think we’re honing in on a little more of a team approach.”
Anderson downplayed the idea that the Angels had some magical epiphany that will solve all that had gone wrong, while acknowledging that it’s heading in the right direction.
“Whenever teams are thriving, getting a lot of hits, we’re all happy about that,” Anderson said. “That’s the goal. Score runs. Get hits. Have good at-bats. It’s always the goal. It’s a pretty constant message.”
Catcher Logan O’Hoppe said he thinks the Angels “are in a good spot” as far as their improved offensive approach.
It’s also helped that the Angels added Wade Meckler and Donovan Walton to the lineup. Both players are known for their ability to put the bat on the ball.
“It’s not going to completely change overnight,” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “It’s going to be a process. There’s going to be some time spent working on it. I do like the approach. It’s helping, the quality of the at-bats, less strikeouts and things like that. Credit to them, the players, the hitting group. They’ve done a nice job of putting in the work and really focusing on those things.”
ZEFERJAHN’S ROLE
A day after Ryan Zeferjahn was charged with four runs, Suzuki acknowledged the Angels would “pick our spots” in using him.
To this point, Zeferjahn has pitched mostly in games that were tied or the Angels were ahead. In his last six games, he’s allowed seven earned runs in four innings, with seven walks.
NOTES
First baseman Nolan Schanuel played catch Saturday, the first time he’d gotten back on the field since going on the injured list because of ankle inflammation. The Angels are still hoping Schanuel won’t be out long. …
The Angels have been impressed with the new roof at Tropicana Field, which was damaged by a hurricane in 2024. The outfielders have said the ball is easier to see against the new roof than the old one. It’s also brighter inside the ballpark than it was with the old roof.
UP NEXT
Angels (RHP Jack Kochanowicz, 2-3, 4.99) at Rays (LHP Shane McClanahan, 5-2, 2.52), 10:40 a.m. PT Sunday, ABTV, 830 AM