Mired in a 12-Game Losing Streak, the Angels Fire Joe Maddon

Joe Maddon became the latest Angels manager to fail to execute the team owner Arte Moreno’s vision of glory with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani and was fired Tuesday afternoon.

The move comes amid a 12-game losing streak.The Angels have slid from a 24-14 record on May 16, when they were tied for first place in the American League West division with the Houston Astros, to a 27-29 mark and an 8.5-game deficit in the division entering Tuesday night’s game with Boston. With Monday night’s 1-0 loss to the Red Sox, Los Angeles has matched the longest single-season losing streak in club history, which was set in 1988.

The club said that Phil Nevin, the team’s third base coach, will take over as the interim manager.

Phil Nevin will step in as interim manager for the Angels. With stars like Shohei Ohtani, the Angels are trying to reach the postseason for the first time since 2014. Credit…Kiyoshi Mio/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

Maddon, who has been close with Moreno since he served on then-manager Mike Scioscia’s coaching staff when Moreno purchased the team in 2003, was on top of the world as a World Series-winning manager of the Chicago Cubs just six years ago. He was wooed to Anaheim after parting ways with the Cubs following the 2019 season. The Angels fired Brad Ausmus, who had been with the team for only one year, in order to secure Maddon.

After the 2020 season, in which Los Angeles went 26-34, the Angels fired their general manager, Billy Eppler, and replaced him with Perry Minasian. That placed the new general manager in the sometimes-uncomfortable position of having inherited a manager along with the job. As Minasian has struggled to rebuild — the Angels have not made the playoffs since 2014 — Eppler moved on to the Mets, where he is leading the top team in the National League.

Everything seemingly has gone wrong for the Angels during the recent losing streak, from Trout enduring an 0 for 26 slump to third baseman Anthony Rendon landing on the injured list — again — to the team’s pitching staff being wildly inconsistent. Minasian tried to improve his team’s pitching this past off-season, signing the free agent starters Noah Syndergaard and Michael Lorenzen and spending $93 million to upgrade the bullpen. That series of moves included re-signing closer Rafael Iglesias and adding the free agents Aaron Loup, Ryan Tepera and Archie Bradley.

Despite those moves, the Angels’ bullpen ranked 15th in the American League with a 4.30 E.R.A. through Monday.