The Angels handed Kade Anderson a rough first lesson under the big-league lights.
For the first time in his professional career, the Mariners rookie got knocked around, with the Angels tagging him for five earned runs over 5.1 innings. That came in a game that also served as another reminder of how closely Anderson and Tyler Bremner will be tracked after the two were linked at the top of the 2026 draft, with the Angels taking Bremner second overall and Seattle immediately answering with Anderson. Bremner is now in AA, developing the way a prospect should, while Anderson has already reached the majors and had success until this night.
The Angels jumped on him right away. After Zach Neto erased an early Mariners threat with a sharp relay throw home to cut down a charging JP Crawford, Los Angeles turned the top of the first into a 2-0 lead. Mike Trout started it with a single up the middle, then Jose Siri ripped an off-speed pitch from Anderson down the line for a double that sent Trout racing all the way around to score.
Siri hooks one to left and brings in a big 🐟 pic.twitter.com/USvODteaSD
Siri then stole third and crossed the plate on a Vaughn Grissom sacrifice fly. The Angels kept building in the third, when Neto stayed scorching hot and lined a triple that scored Wade Meckler from first. Neto later scored himself on a Jose Siri single to make it 4-0.
Anderson was charged with all four of those runs, and a fifth came in after he was gone. Denzer Guzman then delivered the big two-out swing, knocking in two more runs with a clutch single to stretch the lead to 6-3.
El Camello comes through with the bases juiced 🐫🧃 pic.twitter.com/90thRQ06GY
Seattle did get a jolt from Cal Raleigh, who drilled a three-run homer off Reid Detmers to pull the game to 4-3. Detmers has looked like a bona fide ace over the last two months, though he’s been stuck waiting on run support. This time the offense showed up for him, and even with more traffic than usual - especially at home - he was backed into a win, his second straight at home.
Neto kept doing damage, finishing with two more hits and two runs scored. Meckler went 1 for 3 with a run scored and made a couple of nice running catches. Guzman’s two-out hit ended up being the difference in the scoring margin, and Ben Joyce finished it off with a save.
With playoff hopes gone, the Angels are clearly looking ahead, and plenty of the younger pieces gave the crowd reasons to feel good about what’s next.
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Still, the deeper numbers say the breakthrough is not fully there yet. Johnsons season-long profile still includes too many walks and too many home runs, and the advanced metrics suggest the recent run of success may owe as much to good fortune as to a true change in skill. Even so, the Angels have overhauled their player development approach, and that matters here because it gives Johnson a better chance to turn a promising stretch into something more lasting. [Read more 🡒]