The Los Angeles Angels arguably had the worst Opening Day of all 30 MLB teams.
The Angels were gifted a golden opportunity on Thursday to start their season off with a win. Their first opponents were the Chicago White Sox, coming off their historically bad 41-121 campaign.
But the lowly White Sox struck first with three runs to get fans cheering early at Rate Field in Chicago, Ill. The Angels had no answers on offense, while the White Sox piled on with five more runs in the bottom of the 8th.
Things got so bad for the Angels that they ended up inserting infielder Nicky Lopez to get the final out of the inning. Lopez walked the first man he faced but was eventually able to get White Sox shortstop Jacob Amaya to fly out to right field.
The Angels putting a position player on the mound on Opening Day because they’re getting crushed by what was just the worst team in MLB history has to be a new all-time low pic.twitter.com/YE5FJNU5bg
— YankeeWrld (@YankeeWRLD) March 27, 2025
The move makes sense for the Angels in a vacuum. With the game out of hand, manager Ron Washington did not want to tire out any of his remaining pitchers for an inconsequential out. Perhaps he wanted to keep his other bullpen arms fresh for a bounce-back in the following day’s rematch.
But given the context, it’s pretty sad to even be in that situation on Opening Day rather than some regular season game in August. Having it happen against the White Sox makes it exponentially worse.
The Angels finally broke through in the 9th inning when catcher Logan O’Hoppe belted a home run to left field. The blast made the final score a slightly-less-embarrassing 8-1.
