ANAHEIM, Calif. — Ron Washington made sure that the doors to the clubhouse’s front entrance would stay closed before entering the room to deliver a message.
The Angels season is younger than one month old, and the manager was set to start another team meeting after yet another ugly and dispiriting loss.
This club didn’t promise much this season. It didn’t promise the best roster. The higher-ups didn’t promise that this team would finally break a postseason drought that goes back to 2014.
But the identity of this team was always supposed to be rooted in fundamentals. If the Angels had nothing else, they would have that.
“All we have to do is stay in the process,” Washington said in spring training. “Do what the game asks us to do every single day.”
“I tell you what, we are not going to be the same Angels that were in previous years,” he said. “We are going to match the baseball that (the division) is playing.”
Instead, the Angels sit at 10-18 after losing four straight and nine of their past 10. It’s a team that’s been defined by booted balls and base-running blunders. In fourth place, behind the A’s, having allowed more runs than any other American League club.
Just take Sunday’s 11-5 loss to the shorthanded Twins. Luis Rengifo threw a ball into the dirt to put a runner on in the fourth. In the fifth, Jo Adell came up short on a fly ball that MLB StatCast said had a 70 percent catch probability. Then he overran it, allowing a run to score. In the eighth, Brandon Drury booted a grounder that led to an unearned run.
Two nights prior, the Angels dropped two easy flyouts because the fielders didn’t communicate who would make the catch. The past 10 days are populated with moments like this.
After a mostly dormant offseason, expectations for this team weren’t high. But the level of play thus far has been below even the most conservative of projections.
“We’ve got a lot of figuring out to do,” said catcher Logan O’Hoppe after getting swept on Sunday. “It’s tough going through it. But I have faith that it’s what we have to go through for good things in the future. … We’ve just got to take a step back and really assess where we’re at.”
Before the season, O’Hoppe said this to MLB Network about expectations within the Angels clubhouse: “Winning a World Series, and we’ve got the group to do it.”
Washington told the team — showcased in an Angels preseason hype video — that “talk is cheap, we’re gonna be about it.”
Preseason confidence and excitement are nothing new. And the calendar has yet to hit May. There’s still plenty of time for this struggling team to turn it around. But as O’Hoppe acknowledged Sunday, the play has to back up the boasts.
“Obviously we’ve been struggling,” said pitcher Reid Detmers. “But we’ve got a bunch of pros in this locker room. We’re gonna keep fighting and we’re going to come back (Monday) ready to play.”
The coaching staff’s philosophy has been to communicate and collaborate. Angels pitching coach Barry Enright preached the importance of throwing strikes in 0-0 and 1-1 counts. But success in that area proved to be elusive. The coaches held a meeting with the starting rotation to have them explain their woes.
Hitters’ meetings, typically a fairly quick exercise around the league, have run as long as 45 minutes for the Angels. But the offense has now been no-hit for at least 4 2/3 innings three different times over the past six games.
Washington has held two full team meetings — the first coming after the season’s second game.
Talk is cheap. Since all this talking hasn’t led to much of anything.
“We didn’t pitch. We didn’t hit. We didn’t play defense,” Washington said, recounting a weekend in which the Angels were outscored 32-13. “All the things that we said we would do. All the things…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .