SAN FRANCISCO -- The Angels left Oracle Park with a 4-3 win Sunday, and the players doing the heavy lifting were three names that have already started popping up in trade chatter before the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline.
José Soriano, Jorge Soler and Jo Adell all made their mark in the series finale, helping the Angels avoid a three-game sweep by the Giants. Soriano gave up one unearned run over five innings, while Soler and Adell each went deep to power the offense.
Soriano’s name has come up often as a trade possibility, along with left-hander Reid Detmers, because of the season he’s put together and the fact that he’s under team control for two more years after ’26. He came out blazing early in the year, then cooled off, but July has brought a better stretch. Over his past four starts, he has posted a 2.74 ERA.
Sunday still wasn’t clean for him. Soriano worked through traffic most of the afternoon, and his only easy inning came in the fourth. The fifth turned messy when Willy Adames lifted a pop fly to shallow left and Zach Neto lost it in the sun, turning it into a leadoff double.
Soriano then walked Drew Cavanaugh, struck out Grant McCray and got Luis Arraez to roll into what looked like a double play. But Vaughn Grissom’s throw to first sailed past Nolan Schanuel, allowing a run to score. Soriano finished the inning by getting Heliot Ramos to ground out, and the run went down as unearned.
That was the end of the day for Soriano after 85 pitches. He allowed three hits, walked three and struck out five. The walks remain the biggest issue, with his 56 free passes in 123 innings leading the AL.
Still, he had run support from the start. The Angels scored in the first when Mike Trout doubled, moved to third on a wild pitch and came home on Soler’s RBI groundout. Trout finished with four hits, his first four-hit game since April 26, 2021.
Soler added more in the fourth, launching a solo homer off lefty Carson Whisenhunt to open the inning. It was his 13th homer of the season and his first since June 24. Batting cleanup has been part of the effort to get him rolling again and raise his trade value, since he has mostly struggled at the plate this year and is set to be a free agent after the season.
Adell followed with another shot off Whisenhunt, a Statcast-projected 446-foot homer that was his second-longest of the year, behind only his 449-foot blast in Toronto on May 10. It was his 16th homer and his third in the last six games.
Adell, like Soler, has not produced his usual power this season. But unlike Soler, he isn’t a free agent until after next year, so the Angels do not appear to be in the same rush to move him.
In Other News...
Three Angels Could Be Gone As Deadline Frustration Builds
With the trade deadline approaching and the Angels sliding further from the postseason picture, the focus has shifted from adding help to deciding how much veteran inventory to clear out. Several expiring contracts are in play, and the front office is weighing whether to move short-term pieces before August 3 rather than let them walk away for nothing.
Jorge Soler, Matt Suter and Kirby Yates have all surfaced as the kind of movable veterans contenders tend to chase, especially if the Angels are willing to deal from the present to get a little more flexibility for later. There is also the bigger question of whether the club stops with rental pieces or opens the door to more controllable names, which would say plenty about how far this deadline frustration has really gone. [Read more 🡒]
Angels Fans Should Be Very Nervous About Zach Neto Trade Buzz
The Angels 2026 trade deadline plans may already be taking shape, and Zach Neto is the name that has started to draw the most attention. The shortstop has become one of the clubs most important young pieces, and because he remains under team control through 2029, any chatter around him naturally lands with a thud for a fan base that has spent years watching core players come and go.
Still, the rumor mill is getting louder, with Neto frequently surfacing in trade conversations as a potential way for the Angels to add prospect depth if they decide to deal from the top of the roster. For a team that could be looking to reshape itself under interim general manager John Mozeliak, the idea of moving a player with Netos value is exactly the kind of possibility that makes supporters uneasy, even before any official move is on the table. [Read more 🡒]
Angels Face One Deadline Question That Could Reshape The Roster
With the Angels sliding into seller mode ahead of the trade deadline, the focus has shifted from what they might add to what they could be willing to move. The club is reportedly open to dealing controllable players in hopes of bringing back young talent, which puts a few familiar names into the middle of the conversation and makes this a far more interesting deadline for Anaheim than a simple roster trim.
Jo Adell, Reid Detmers, Jose Soriano and Ryan Zeferjahn have all surfaced as possible trade pieces, with several contenders already circling the idea of adding upside without giving up long-term flexibility. Philadelphia has been mentioned in connection with Adell, while Milwaukee and the Dodgers have come up as potential fits in talks involving Detmers and Soriano, and bullpen-needy clubs could also have interest in Zeferjahn. The bigger question now is how aggressive the Angels want to be in converting that group into the kind of young return that could alter the shape of the roster well beyond this summer. [Read more 🡒]