The Angels Are Having Horrid Luck With Suicide Squeeze Plays

Maren Angus-Coombs | Sep 5, 2024

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Saturday evening brought on a case of déjà vu for the Los Angeles Angels when a suicide squeeze went horribly wrong against the Seattle Mariners.

Luckily, it all worked out and the Angels won the game 5-4.

Just like in a game back in May against St. Louis, the Angels failed to execute.

Taylor Ward led off the eighth inning with a double, tying the score at 4-4. He advanced to third on a wild pitch, putting the Angels in a great spot to score with Jack Lopez up next. It felt like a run was almost guaranteed.

Chaos ensued when Lopez laid down the bunt, which rolled maybe an inch away from home plate.

Lopez stayed in the batter's box, thinking the ball would roll foul, but Ward was already sprinting home. It made for a strange scene as Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh easily tagged out Ward, who almost slid into Lopez. Raleigh then threw to first, where Lopez was tagged out just as easily.

So, on a suicide squeeze, if the hitter can get the ball on the ground in play, it's basically impossible for the defense to stop the run from scoring.

Unless you do this. pic.twitter.com/Sg7m4A6NxG

— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) September 1, 2024

The whole sequence was reminiscent of another failed squeeze play earlier this season when Luis Guillorme missed the bunt attempt on a 1-1 slider outside the zone. The miss led to Zach Neto getting tagged out easily at home. It went down as a caught stealing for the second out.

It also left manager Ron Washington fuming.

“Lefty on lefty, and with a sinkerballer on a left-hander, I didn’t want him to hit into a double play,” Washington said of Guillorme. “He can handle the bat. He didn’t do the job. It wasn’t anything I did wrong. He didn’t do the job.”

Guillorme has since been designated for assignment and is now playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks. However, this most recent failed squeeze was a new low. Lopez just stood at home plate, watching, before he realized that it was a fair ball.

Lopez also happened to be in that position because Neto was benched a few innings prior.

Neto had a mental lapse in the fourth inning, allowing two Mariners runs, and then made an error by misplaying a grounder in the fifth. When the Angels took the field in the sixth, Neto was on the bench.

Washington told reporters that it was a teaching moment for Neto and others who aren't used to the grind of a full major league season.

“A lot of those kids out there have never been through this,” Washington said. “And sometimes you have to teach them the lesson that they need to learn. And the lesson you need to learn is he’s a big-time piece, and he cannot let what happens during the course of a ballgame affect what he does during the course of the ballgame. That’s all that was. That was a lesson.”