Last night in Anaheim
The first 25,000 fans to enter Angel Stadium last night received Mike Trout bobbleheads, but the bobbling head of Braves pitcher Reynaldo Lopez was the prize Jorge Soler sought.
One pitch turned an ordinary contest into a game gone wild.
In the bottom of the first, Soler lined a two-run homer into left field. It was the fifth time in 23 career at-bats that the slugger had taken Lopez deep. Soler has faced other pitchers more often, but no hurler has served up more dingers to the Cuban slugger than Lopez.
Indeed, that home run raised Soler’s average against Lopez to .609. (By the way, had anyone else forgotten that Soler led the AL with 48 homers in 2019?)
Back when $30 million meant something in 2012, the Cubs signed Soler out of Cuba to a nine-year deal. He helped the Cubs win a World Series in 2016 and was the MVP of the Fall Classic with the — that’s right — Braves in 2021.
The next time Soler came to bat, Lopez got ahead of him 1-2 before drilling him on the hands with a 2-2 fastball. The batter took his base. Fellow Cuban Yoan Moncada followed with a harmless ground ball to end the inning. The game still seemed ordinary, if not a bit plodding.
I stared up at the scoreboard and flashed back to 2015, when I scouted three of the bottom four batters in the Braves starting lineup. They were all in the South Atlantic League, all with different teams: Left fielder Mauricio Dubon was playing middle infield for the Greenville Drive, Boston’s affiliate; Jonah Heim, whom I wrote about when he was behind the plate for the 2023 World Series-winning Texas Rangers, was catching in Delmarva (Orioles); Jorge Mateo was playing shortstop for the Yankees’ affiliate in Charleston.
When Dubon played shortstop for Greenville, his double play partner was Moncada, now in the opposing dugout. Seeing this collection of players reminded me that the human element is the game. All of those players are now incredibly well traveled. All have fought through failure and battled back from injury. The player I expected the least from has two awards from Rawlings on his mantle.
Dubon won the Gold Glove as the American League’s best utility player in both 2023 and 2025. I saw him play second base, short, and left field back in the minors. He showed the ability to be an average defender at all positions, but I wasn’t sure he’d hit enough to provide sustained value in the big leagues. While his performance over 2,100 Major League plate appearances won’t inspire his manager to pencil him in at DH, his 2,100 MLB plate appearances tell us something!
Both lineups — in fact, most lineups — are sprinkled with well-traveled players. Soler and Lopez were teammates for a couple months in Atlanta at the end of the 2024 season.
Forgive me if I wasn’t anticipating a brawl.
In fact, the final pitch that Lopez threw last night — with two outs in the fifth — was initially memorable because of its path to the catcher’s mitt.
The elevated 97 MPH four-seamer zipped over the plate such that Jonah Heim could barely draw leather on it. The glancing touch of his mitt did little to slow the ball, and it one-hopped the backstop before returning directly to the catcher. Angels baserunner Nolan Schanuel advanced from first to second on the wild pitch, but the rebound made the play much closer than initially expected.
My daughter, whose favorite position on the softball field is behind the plate, took notice, and we began discussing the many things that can happen on a wild pitch.
Our conversation stopped abruptly. Soler charged towards Lopez, who appeared to invite the confrontation. A brawl ensued. Braves manager Walt Weiss wrangled Soler, while Trout calmed Lopez. This is the part where we say that cooler heads prevailed.
Mateo was pinch hit for in the top of the seventh. The sixth inning had ended on an ugly play that included a throwing error from Mateo, who was shaky on a ground ball earlier in the game, and Angels left fielder Josh Lowe being thrown out trying to advance to third. I bring this up only because Mateo is not in the starting lineup today (not necessarily unusual), and I hope he wasn’t dinged up in the fight.
Earlier this week, when writing about the ABS Challenges and vitriol directed towards the home plate umpires, I smugly made some professional wrestling references. I come to you today to promise that I won’t tackle these issues any more this season. If Oprah has taught us anything, it’s that manifestation is not a power to be trifled with. I am sorry. I love baseball. I especially love good baseball.
On Monday night, Angels starter Jose Soriano ran his record to 3-0 after dominating the Atlanta lineup. He allowed a run for the first time this season, but the sinkerballer went eight innings, allowing only three hits while striking out 10 and walking none. It looks like his next start will come on Sunday in Cincinnati. The Reds have had a hard time scoring runs so far this season. It’s only April, but I like the idea of Soriano entering the AL Cy Young Award mix.
