For years, the Angels’ biggest pitching problem has been painfully familiar: not enough starting arms they could trust, and not enough of them coming from within. That’s why what happened in August stood out so sharply. Los Angeles didn’t just get by on the mound - it led the league in ERA for the month, posting a 2.51 mark that was the best single-month ERA in club history since 1982.
And this wasn’t a one-man rescue act. Reid Detmers was brilliant, yes, but the rotation’s surge was a group effort from top to bottom.
Even Grayson Rodriguez had a hand in it. The hot stretch has carried into September, too, and while a 2.50 team ERA won’t hold forever, the underlying run looks a lot more real than a fluke.
Detmers isn’t the only reason the Angels’ rotation suddenly looks dangerous. Walbert Ureña has turned himself into a real foundation piece, and his numbers are starting to sound like something Los Angeles hasn’t had in a long time. The 22-year-old is on track to become the first Angels starter since Weaver to finish a rookie season with more than 100 strikeouts and an ERA below 2.90 since Weaver in 2006.
He backed that up on September 6 with one of his best outings yet: eight innings, one run, 88 pitches. The fastball kept showing up in the triple digits, and Kurt Suzuki didn’t hide how impressed he was afterward.
“[Ureña’s] strong, man,” Kurt Suzuki said following the performance. “We’ve seen it all year.
He gets 100 pitches, and he’s still throwing 100 [mph]. It just looks like he isn’t even putting any effort into it; his delivery is so easy.
You’re just kind of amazed every time he takes the ball.”
For an Angels team that has spent more than a decade without even one clear rotation cornerstone, having two is a massive shift. But the encouraging part is that the depth behind Detmers and Ureña is starting to show up, too.
Since August 1, Ryan Johnson has posted a 1.67 ERA, George Klassen has been at 2.01, Yusei Kikuchi at 3.50, and Grayson Rodriguez at 4.30, with Detmers sitting at 1.50. Johnson’s August progress matters a lot for a club that has become the poster child for player-development misses. The 24-year-old has real talent, and if the new regime avoids the old mistakes, there’s still plenty of ceiling left to chase.
Klassen’s latest run was interrupted when lower back inflammation landed him on the IL on August 30. Before that, the hard-throwing right-hander had started to tighten up his command over four August outings, and that made his electric stuff even more difficult to handle.
His first big league look in April was rough - two starts, 4 2/3 innings, 10 walks, six earned runs - but August was much better. In 22 1/3 innings, he allowed 11 walks and five earned runs.
Small sample or not, it was an encouraging step toward the kind of front-end upside the Angels have been waiting for.
Kikuchi’s path has been different. After spending much of his career as a durable innings eater, injuries wiped out a big chunk of his season.
His return started with a shaky outing on August 23 against the Texas Rangers, when he gave up five runs over five innings. But the last two starts have looked far more like the version the Angels had in mind when they signed him in November 2024 to be their ace: just two earned runs allowed over 13 innings, with 12 strikeouts.
There’s even a strange twist in how Kikuchi’s role could evolve. The Angels brought him in to headline the staff, but by 2027 he could be more of a fourth or fifth starter, bringing experience and stability to a younger group that now looks much more promising.
And the pitching picture doesn’t stop there. Ben Joyce, Samy Natera Jr., and Jose Fermin are all giving the club a trio of young relievers who look ready to handle the late innings. Put that together with the improvement on the offensive side, and the Angels suddenly look a lot closer to contention than they did not long ago - maybe even without a huge offseason spending spree.
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Ryan Johnson Is Giving The Angels A Real Rotation Decision
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