Angels Destroyed in Series Finale Against Seattle
It was all Seattle in the final matchup of the 2025 season for the Los Angeles Angels as they fell 11-2 Sunday afternoon. With the loss, the Mariners earned their ninth-straight win with the sweep over the Angels. The sweep has put the Mariners in first place in the AL West. For the Angels, the sweep puts them just one game away from being eliminated from postseason contention. Fortunately for the Angels, this was the final meeting between the two teams until next year.
The Angels' only runs of the game came by way of the long ball. Christian Moore was able to line a sinker over the center field wall, giving the Angels their first run of the game. The Angels' second and final run of the game came from an unlikely source in Oswald Peraza in the sixth inning. The only bright spot for the Halos' offense was that the recently called-up prospect, Denzer Guzmán, got his first career MLB hit in the fifth inning.
Kyle Hendricks suffered one of the worst outings of the 2025 season, giving up nine runs on 10 hits while walking two. Cal Raleigh put the Mariners on the scoreboard first with his 54th homer of the season, a two-run shot, tying Mickey Mantle for the most homers by a switch-hitter in MLB history. Things got ugly for Hendricks fast when, in the fourth inning, four of the first five batters in the inning got on base. By then, the writing was on the wall, and an Angels victory was going to take a miracle. That miracle never came as the Mariners capped off the fourth inning, scoring six runs to put them in a position to cruise to an easy victory.
Point blank, the Angels were out-matched in every aspect of the game. Pitching struggled, and the offense was uninspired. The Angels' offense struggled to get any momentum going as Mariners starter George Kirby shut down the Halos' bats, striking out 14 out of the Halos' 18 total strikeouts. With a bat outing for Hendricks, it added extra pressure on the already strained bullpen to take on more bulk to finish the game.
With the loss, the Angels have been eliminated from AL West playoff contention, clinched a 10th straight losing season, and have tied a season high of 18 strikeouts by their offense. The loss feels like a culmination of what the Angels have been this season. A team that has obvious flaws to fix, but keeps on rolling with the punches. What else is there to do? The Angels continue their final road trip of 2025 to take on MLB’s best team, the Milwaukee Brewers, for a three-game series at American Family Field.
