The Los Angeles Angels are scheduled to return to the ballpark again on Wednesday night, gather themselves emotionally and competitively and try to build on what they managed to achieve the night before.
The Angels defeated the Texas Rangers 9-4 on Tuesday night, a day after teammate Tyler Skaggs was found dead in his team hotel room from undetermined causes.
After the win, players for the Angels were made available for the first time since Skaggs’ death. Emotions filled the room as Mike Trout, Kole Calhoun, Andrew Heaney, Justin Upton and Justin Bour spoke about their teammate.
“We know we have an Angel watching over us now,” Calhoun said.
The Angels have experienced similar in-season shock and sorrow several times in their team history, most recently when rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed by a drunken driver hours after making his season debut in April 2009.
The Angels went on to have a very successful regular season and swept the Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series that fall before losing to the New York Yankees in the AL Championship Series.
The current Angels hope to honor their fallen teammate by making an even longer run this season.
They plan to send rookie right-hander Griffin Canning to the mound for his 12th start of the season.
Canning struggled in early June before delivering his best performance of the month on Thursday in an 8-3 win against the Oakland A’s, the only victory the Angels secured in the four-game series. Canning allowed two runs on three hits in six innings, striking out six and walking one.
Canning (3-4, 3.79 ERA) faced Texas on May 24 in Anaheim and allowed one run on three hits in five innings. He did not receive a decision in Los Angeles’ 4-3 defeat.
“I’m just trying to take it one pitch at a time,” Canning said afterward.
The Rangers plan to send right-hander Ariel Jurado (5-3, 3.90 ERA) to the mound in the second game of the three-game series.
Jurado is coming off seven shutout innings in a 3-1 win in Detroit on Thursday. It represented the longest outing of his two-year major league career.
Jurado pitched well against the Angels on May 26 in Anaheim, allowing two runs and six hits in 6 1/3 innings. He carried a 5-1 lead into the seventh inning, but the bullpen fell apart after he departed and the Rangers fell 7-6.
Jurado has remained in the rotation, going 4-1 since then with a 5.03 ERA. His ERA ballooned in his only loss in that span, when he gave up seven runs and nine hits in three innings during an 11-3 loss at Cincinnati on June 16.
Expect the Angels to make some roster moves on Wednesday.
Second baseman Tommy La Stella, who was selected to his first All-Star team on Sunday, fouled a pitch off his right shin and had to leave the game in the sixth inning on Tuesday, and outfielder Brian Goodwin was hit by a pitch on his right wrist and also left the game.
Both were scheduled to have CT scans on Wednesday.