Angels maintain faith in struggling rookie Nolan Schanuel

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It’s a fine line that a major league team must walk with a struggling young player. The team wants to show confidence in the player, but not allow him to fail so much that he loses confidence in himself.

Angels manager Ron Washington said the team is still on the right side of the line with Nolan Schanuel.

“I have no problem constantly running him out there and letting him try to figure it out,” Washington said of his rookie first baseman. “I haven’t seen where he has disbelief that he can do something. I see it’s not happening. I see him handling that it’s not happening. I don’t see him handling it in a panic way.”

Schanuel, 22, is less than a year removed from playing in college. He rocketed to the majors barely a month after he was drafted last summer, and he hit .275 with a .732 OPS in 29 games last season, which earned him the Angels’ first base job heading into 2024.

But Schanuel has started off this season hitting .095 with a .431 OPS. He was not in the lineup on Tuesday against Tampa Bay, but Washington said that was more because he wanted to get Miguel Sanó in after he swung the bat well the night before. Schanuel will play again on Wednesday, Washington said.

“Once he gets out of his way, and starts understanding that he can and believing that he can, I think he’ll take off, because he can hit,” Washington said. “In this game, everybody goes through struggles. And his just happens to be right now at the beginning of the year.”

Washington would like to see Schanuel be more aggressive. Last year he swung at 63% of pitches in the zone, which is slightly below the major league average of 66%. This season, though, Schanuel has swung at 48% of pitches in the zone.

Washington said the way to get the message to Schanuel is by “constantly repeating it over and over and over. That’s it. He’s the one who has to go out there and do it.”

DRURY OUT

Infielder Brandon Drury was not in the lineup on Tuesday because of some tightness in his left hamstring. Drury said he started to feel it over the weekend in Boston, and it got worse during Monday’s game against the Rays.

Drury did some light running on Tuesday afternoon and said he was available to play.

“We aren’t taking any chances on this turf,” Washington said. “You could be sore on this turf and you keep trying to work on this turf, it’s gonna get worse. … We’re only in April. I certainly wouldn’t want him to run out there and make something worse and then we lose him for May.”

CLOSER USE

Right-hander Carlos Estévez was warming up to pitch the ninth inning with the Angels holding a two-run lead on Monday night. Taylor Ward then hit a two-run homer to double the lead, removing the save situation.

Washington said he still used Estévez because he didn’t want to take any chances. The Rays had trailed by four in the top of the eighth and scored two in the bottom of the inning.

“They weren’t through, and you can never think that they’re through,” Washington said. “I was bringing in my closer to shut that down. I don’t care if it was a chance to get a save or not. I’m shutting it down. Period.”

Washington said in some circumstances he might go to another reliever once the lead gets to four runs, though.

“I’m not saying I’m going to do that every time, but if I feel like I need to squash momentum, I’m doing it,” he said.

NOTES

The Angels are still collecting information on right-handed reliever Robert Stephenson, who underwent tests on Monday after feeling some discomfort in his elbow during his rehab outing on Saturday night. …

Barring any changes to the rotation, the Angels are going to play their next five games with a starter pitching on exactly four days of rest. It will be the first time since July 25-29, 2018 that the Angels used a starter on four days of rest in five consecutive games. They used some version of a six-man rotation for most of the past six years because of two-way star Shohei Ohtani. Up until now, they’ve had off days that allowed the starters to have at least five days of rest, even with a five-man rotation.

UP NEXT

Angels (LHP Reid Detmers, 3-0, 1.04 ERA) at Rays (RHP Zack Littell, 1-0, 1.17), Wednesday, 3:50 p.m. PT, Bally Sports West, 830 AM