Tonight Reid Detmers is set to take the ball one more time in 2026, and it feels like a reckless call from the Angels. Detmers has been pitching like a true front-line arm, yet the club is choosing to send him out in a game with no real meaning and plenty of downside.
There’s no obvious reward here for Detmers or for the team. Players always want to compete, but this decision ignores the bigger picture and looks like the same old Angels approach dressed up as something new.
Detmers has already done plenty this season. Over his last 12 starts, he owns a 2.05 ERA and has been one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball since the break.
He has made 31 starts, posted 3.7 WAR and carries a 1.050 WHIP. He has also struck out 204 big league hitters in 2026.
He has even taken part in a kids clinic for Play Ball! weekend with Wade Meckler and made time for an interview for Angels On SI. In other words, he has already done everything the Angels could ask for and more.
The workload is what makes this so hard to justify. Detmers has logged 179 innings, which is already 28 more than he threw across 2024 and 2025 combined. That is a massive jump, and every inning from here only pushes him farther into unfamiliar territory.
That kind of increase is exactly how pitchers get into trouble. The source material points to recent injuries for Braxton Ashcroft and Blake Tidwell after major workload spikes this season, and notes that Tidwell’s injury is especially worrying because it could cost him the full season next year. It also points to the cautionary arcs of Mark Prior and Matt Harvey, both of whom went from elite status to major injury after being pushed too hard.
The Angels’ possible motivation doesn’t make the move any cleaner. Maybe they are trying to avoid becoming the only MLB team with a 100-loss season, but that sort of number-chasing is a bad reason to gamble with a pitcher’s arm. The club has already dropped 98 games, and there were plenty of chances to avoid getting anywhere near that line.
Even then, the source material argues that a first 100-loss season would land where it should: on Arte Moreno, and as another ugly mark on his run as owner.
The larger point is simple. The Angels have spent a long time searching for a starter who can anchor the top of the rotation in a rebuild, and now that they have one, they are stretching him well beyond his recent workload in a meaningless September game. If the whole exercise is just about finishing with 98 or 99 losses instead of 100, that is a poor tradeoff.
At best, Detmers comes out fine and the Angels avoid an even bigger mess. That would be the most favorable outcome. But the decision still makes very little sense, and it puts a valuable arm at risk for a number that changes almost nothing.
In Other News...
Christian Moore Just Gave Angels Fans A Reason To Keep Watching
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The Angels then added an insurance run in the eighth inning and let the bullpen finish the job, a small but welcome sign of competence in a season that has not always offered many clean finishes. For a team trying to stay worth the watch, Moores bat was the kind of late-game spark that can make a September game feel like something more. [Read more 🡒]
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The ripple effects are obvious, too, with Arte Moreno now on the outside of the operation he once controlled and Kurt Suzuki left in a tougher spot as manager under the new regime. None of this guarantees immediate success, but it does give the Angels a different kind of energy around the franchise, one built more on possibility than resignation. For once, the conversation around the team is about what comes next instead of what went wrong. [Read more 🡒]
Grayson Rodriguez Still Leaves The Angels With One Huge Doubt
Grayson Rodriguezs first season with the Angels was a long, uneven one after he arrived from Baltimore in the Taylor Ward trade. A rocky start, complicated by injury and inconsistent results, left the right-hander searching for answers, but he did show real improvement in August after some coaching changes, giving the Angels at least a late glimpse of the pitcher they believed they were getting.
Even with that encouraging finish, the concern in Anaheim is obvious. Rodriguez closed the year with a 6.02 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP, numbers that reflect how far he still has to go to settle into a reliable rotation piece. The Angels do have three years of team control left, which keeps the long view intact, and they are still hoping he can get all the way back to the pre-injury form that made him such an appealing part of the deal. [Read more 🡒]