Angels DFA struggling lefty José Suarez after rough stretch

Suarez showed flashes of brilliance in 2021 and 2022, going 16-16 with a 3.86 ERA, but the 26-year-old hasn’t been able to recapture that form, missing most of 2023 with a left shoulder injury and going 2-5 with an 8.22 ERA over the past two seasons.

ANAHEIM — The José Suarez era ended in a clubhouse in San Francisco, not with a whimper but steadfast self-preservation.

The Angels lefty was roughed up again Sunday, continuing a two-year slide that had only gotten worse and never better, giving up five hits and five runs in a 13-6 loss to the Giants and completing just one inning. Angels manager Ron Washington, postgame, said Suarez had struggled to locate his pitches. Suarez, though, said through an interpreter he thought he’d made “pretty good pitches.”

Given an opportunity to fill some of the innings vacated when the Angels sent struggling Reid Detmers to Triple-A, Suarez took two losses on the team’s road trip last week while giving up nine runs on 11 hits in 3⅔ innings. His ERA jumped to 8.15 after Sunday’s appearance.

A day later, back in Anaheim, his locker was gone.

The Angels officially announced Suarez had been designated for assignment on Monday, a close to one of the stranger chapters for an Angels pitcher in recent memory. Within a system that has consistently struggled in recent years to produce top-end, homegrown starters, Suarez seemed a budding bright spot in 2021 and 2022, a young team-controlled arm who had authored back-to-back sub-4.00 ERA seasons. But his command went haywire in 2023, much of his season marred by injury, and the lefty hadn’t rediscovered it in long relief this season.

The Angels had previously refused to part ways with Suarez because he’s out of options and they felt he could turn it around. Washington said Suarez’s comments after his appearance on Sunday – directly contradicting his – didn’t play a role in the DFA, but added “it was obvious the results weren’t there.”

“It was the right move because, you know, he just wasn’t performing,” Washington said before the Angels’ game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday. “And we needed to get some people up here to perform.”

That person: Zach Plesac, a 29-year-old righty signed by the Angels in January who had spent the first three months of the season in Triple-A. Plesac didn’t wow with Salt Lake, putting up a 5.42 ERA in 13 starts, but went six innings in each of his last five starts with the Bees and once was a reliable member of Cleveland’s rotation (26-27 with a 4.20 ERA).

“Been feeling really good,” Plesac said, speaking to reporters shortly after he arrived in the clubhouse on Monday. “I think I’ve been building up, lot of starts in a row going long-distance, which was a goal of mine, just to make good pitches and have quality innings.”

Suarez spent six seasons with the Angels, a six-year yo-yo between the starting rotation, long relief and Triple-A, any step in one direction always seemingly followed by another in the opposite direction. The franchise, however, still kept a grip on the reins through years of rocky terrain, the Venezuelan’s potential and youth tantalizing.

Even sending him to waivers wasn’t exactly a goodbye. Washington said Monday, with a grin, that his fingers were crossed that Suarez wouldn’t get claimed so the Angels could “get him right.”

“He just wasn’t right,” Washington said.

They’ll have three days to see if another organization will try their hand setting him straight first.

SORIANO SCRATCHED

There was no expectation in his call-up, Plesac said Monday, a few hours before the Angels’ series-opening tilt with the Brewers. He’d simply come in whenever was needed.

That came plenty sooner than expected, as planned starter Jose Soriano was scratched a couple of hours before the first pitch with what the Angels called “lower abdominal pain.” Washington, meeting with reporters again briefly to discuss the change, said pregame he hadn’t been told by medical staff the extent of Soriano’s injury or the origin.

Washington said he didn’t know if Soriano could start Tuesday’s game against the Brewers, which would have been Plesac’s slot.

“Might have to wait until his next start,” Washington said.

DRURY RETURNS

After a month-plus-long absence with a hamstring injury, infielder Brandon Drury was back in the Angels’ lineup at second base on Monday, a much-needed veteran infusion into a youthful lineup.

Drury was one of the Angels’ most productive bats in 2023, hitting 26 home runs and driving in 83 runs in 125 games. He’d scuffled to start 2024 before going on the IL, though, hitting just .173 with a .470 OPS.

“All that happened to him in the first half, he’s had a great amount of opportunity to think about it, do what he have to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and just come here and help us move forward,” Washington said.

Drury started at second base in place of Luis Rengifo, who Washington gave a day of rest after exiting Sunday’s game with a bruised wrist after getting hit by a pitch, but Washington said the injury isn’t thought to be serious.

The Angels also designated infielder Cole Tucker for assignment. Tucker batted .180 with a .563 OPS for the Angels, who recalled him in late April.

UP NEXT

Brewers (RHP Tobias Myers, 3-2, 3.76 ERA) at Angels (unknown), Tuesday, 6:38 p.m., Bally Sports West, 830 AM