ANAHEIM – Angels shortstop Zach Neto bounded off the field after taking grounders before the Angels’ 3-2 comeback victory Sunday over the Seattle Mariners, came right toward me, waiting there to ask him what he’s learned from Ron Washington.
Before I could even ask, Washington answered, interrupting politely to deliver something of a pop quiz: “Excuse me one second: Why’d you miss that ball?”
For a second, Neto seemed stumped.
The 72-year-old manager, a baseball lifer who began his big league career with the Dodgers 24 years before the 23-year-old Neto was born, reenacted the play twice. And then Neto got it; he’d tried to play it on a hop when he shouldn’t have. That was what his skipper – who often handles infield work; a manager in title, a coach at heart – wanted to hear.
“You can fool yourself,” Washington said with a grin as he left Neto with me and went striding toward the scrum of reporters a few feet away. “But you can’t fool me.”
No fooling. The inexperienced, injured Angels are taking baby steps toward respectability.
Inching mostly forward but sometimes back, along a steep, nonlinear learning curve by which Washington’s group should be graded this season.
After all, that’s why the plainspoken, Winston-smoking, old-school manager was hired: To teach.
“He’s not just a guy that writes the lineup every day,” said Logan O’Hoppe, the Angels’ 24-year-old catcher who enters this week’s All-Star break with a club-record-tying 14 home runs. “… I feel like I’ve learned the most this season than I have before.”
To Neto, Washington is “the infield guru.”
He proved that during coaching stints in Oakland, Houston, Atlanta and in his eight seasons managing the Texas Rangers, whom he twice took to the World Series.
He was the coach working with the A’s Eric Chavez, who went from an average fielder to a six-time Gold Glover with Washington’s help. He worked with Oakland shortstop Miguel Tejada when he won the American League MVP in 2002 and with Michael Young and Ian Kinsler, who became All-Star infielders in Texas.
And now Neto’s got his attention.
“Let him come in here and tell me,” said Neto, who’s the second shortstop in Angels history to hit 10 home runs before the All-Star break, following Jim Fregosi, who did it in 1970.
“Everything he tells me, it goes in one ear and it stays there.”
And Washington – whose team has had to grow up even faster without stars Mike Trout (still recovering from knee surgery) and Anthony Rendon (who was out three months with a hamstring injury) – is going to tell it straight.
In team meetings and while meeting the press.
There was the controversial suicide squeeze play call in May, when instead of falling on the sword publicly like many managers might have, Washington came out swinging it, criticizing Luis Guillorme for missing the bunt.
And in his pregame address Sunday, Washington was blunt talking about what Taylor Ward needs to do to pick up production that’s dipped after he was hit in the helmet June 30: “He’s just gotta regain his courage.”
His honest assessment of his club heading into the break?
“I give them a C+,” he said. “On our way to an A. When we arrive at A, that’s when we’re gonna change places with Seattle … but we’re at a C+ right now, we’re learning and we’re figuring it out.”
Figuring out how to win, like on Sunday, when they got all their runs on a three-run bomb by Jo Adell – a huge home run because it gave the Halos their third consecutive victory over the American League West-leading Mariners and because it gave the 25-year-old outfielder something even more valuable: Belief.
sea ya #RepTheHalo | #SoCalMcD pic.twitter.com/FBKifBqxvf
— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) July 14, 2024
Heading into the All-Star break, the Angels are 41-55, hardly an eye-popping record until you inspect it closely for incremental, jagged improvement along the way – they were 10-17 in May but 15-11 in June, for example.
There have been substantial streaks in both directions, though three five-game losing streaks aren’t quite off-set by a six-game winning streak, which was educational for how mentally taxing it was, Washington said.
“(Seven of eight) games, we won ’em, and that’s what it takes – that’s the drain it takes to be on top,” he said. “We haven’t learned how to maintain that yet. But if our drains can be less, we’re gonna be fine.”
Sunday provided some evidence that that part of the message – it’s gonna be fine – is starting to take.
“It’s just a matter of having confidence,” said Neto, who was on base with Mickey Moniak when Adell’s home run cleared the center field wall. “It’s all mental, so you have to slow the game down. When he got me, I was very fast-paced and he’s taught me how to stay fast-paced, but how to slow everything down mentally.”
“It’s just fun watching these guys grow, it really is,” Washington said. “It’s been fun to watch (Luis) Renigfo get where he’s gotten (into the All-Star conversation); it’s fun to watch Neto get where he’s gotten; just so much watching fun watching (Nolan) Schanuel get where he’s gotten (hitting .301 since June 12). It’s so nice to see O’Hoppe come where he’s come, because the first month and a half, his brain was all over the place. But he’s learned how to compartmentalize…”
That’s C+ work right there.
Prof. Washington will be a tougher grader next year, though. Angels fans should be too.
“I’m gonna expect an A, ’cause they already been through it,” Washington said. “You’re gonna have to get on the train or you’re gonna have to miss the train. And when you miss the train, there’s no telling when the next one’s comin.’ ”
