Angels, in rare return home, open set vs. Giants

The Los Angeles Angels will begin a three-game series Friday night against the San Francisco Giants in Anaheim, Calif., after playing 15 of their first 18 games on the road.

Angels first baseman Nolan Schanuel went into the offseason looking to improve his numbers from last season. In particular, his stats in home games were worse than his road figures across the board.

He hit .240 with six homers and a .679 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in Anaheim, compared to .262, seven homers and .735 OPS on the road. The 13 home runs overall were a disappointment, as 19 major league first basemen hit more long balls than Schanuel last year.

Schanuel, who went 1-for-4 with a run in the Angels’ 5-3 road loss to the Texas Rangers on Thursday, has hit two home runs this season — which would put him on a pace for 18, an improvement from last year. Still, Schanuel is hoping to provide more pop for a lineup that went has 30 homers, which ranks third in the majors behind only the 34 of both the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees.

“I did a lot of weightlifting, a lot of overload/underload with different bats,” Schanuel said of his winter work. “I think that helped the most. It kind of helped fast-twitch muscles in my body and kind of works the hips, works the obliques. I still do it every three days.”

His two home runs came in the past five games, giving the 23-year-old left-handed hitter hope his work is paying off.

“I feel pretty good,” Schanuel said. “I feel like early on, especially in spring, I was catching the ball too far out forward, causing a lot of topspin, and kind of a little bit at the start of the season as well. So one thing I just had to work on was getting the ball a little deeper and not being out in front.”

Left-hander Tyler Anderson (1-0, 2.87 ERA) will start Friday for Los Angeles, coming off his first victory of the year on Saturday against the Houston Astros.

He held the Astros to just one hit, but he walked four and needed 95 pitches to get through 5 2/3 scoreless innings.

Anderson is 4-3 with a 4.09 ERA in 12 career starts versus the Giants.

Right-hander Logan Webb (2-0, 2.63) will make his fifth start of the season for San Francisco. He is coming off a victory over the Yankees in New York on Sunday, when he allowed three runs and five hits in five innings.

Webb has faced the Angels just once, a start on Aug. 7, 2023. He wound up with a no-decision after permitting two runs (one earned) on seven hits in 5 2/3 innings.

Giants center fielder Jung Hoo Lee did not start in San Francisco’s 6-4 loss to the Phillies on Thursday, just the second time in the club’s 18 games he wasn’t in the lineup. He came off the bench and delivered a pinch-hit infield single in the ninth inning.

Lee has seven multi-hit games, and he is batting .348 with 14 extra-base hits and a 1.055 OPS.

Lee turned some heads when he hit three home runs during last weekend’s series at Yankee Stadium.

“A lot of these guys he’s never faced before, and he’s going to continue to face guys he’s never seen before,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said of the 26-year-old Japan native who played 37 games for San Francisco last season. “But that’s kind of where the bat-to-ball skills come into play. He feels like he can put anybody in play. When he’s seeing it good and he squares it up, those are the kind of results you’re going to get.”

Lee played seven seasons in the KBO League, the professional baseball circuit in South Korea, before signing with the Giants in December 2023.

–Field Level Media