ANAHEIM \u2014 Oswald Peraza has carried spring training into the season, so far.<\/p>\n
The Angels took a flier on Peraza at the trade deadline last year<\/a>, grabbing a player who had been a solid defender but had never lived up to his potential at the plate.<\/p>\n He hit .190 with a .549 OPS in 429 plate appearances with the New York Yankees, and then .186 with a .512 OPS in 95 plate appearances after the Angels got him<\/a>.<\/p>\n This spring, though, Peraza hit .315 with an .888 OPS, which won him the starting second base job. Through the first seven games of the season, he was hitting .286 with an .824 OPS.<\/p>\n Peraza explained that the difference starts with his leg kick, which has gone through various versions throughout his career. Last year the Angels tried to make it more of a tap. Now he\u2019s back to lifting his leg a little more.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel a lot more in rhythm and a lot more comfortable with my leg kick,\u201d Peraza said. \u201cI feel more control and have better timing.\u201d<\/p>\n The bar that Peraza has to clear for the Angels to have an upgrade at second is fairly low. Last year, Angels second basemen combined for a .598 OPS in 2025, which was 28th in the majors.<\/p>\n Peraza has also provided positive value in the field.<\/p>\n \u201cJust the observations of his work, in the infield and what he\u2019s doing in the cage, all that type of stuff that he\u2019s doing gets me excited with where he could potentially be,\u201d Manager Kurt Suzuki said. \u201cI know it\u2019s different going on the field than doing stuff on the side, but just the work, the mindset, his willingness to learn and to be open to different things is everything that you can ask for in a player. He\u2019s been seeing the results and the fruits of his labor a little bit too, so I think it\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n INJURY UPDATES<\/p>\n Right-hander Kirby Yates, who has a knee injury<\/a>, threw again on Friday, after throwing a bullpen on Wednesday in Chicago.<\/p>\n Right-hander Ben Joyce, who is rehabbing from shoulder surgery, threw another bullpen session in Arizona on Friday. Joyce has been throwing bullpens for a few weeks. It\u2019s still unclear when he\u2019ll progress to the next step, which would be facing hitters.<\/p>\n \u201cI know he\u2019s throwing off the mound and feeling really strong,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cWhether that\u2019s throwing 100 yet, I don\u2019t know yet. I know he\u2019s feeling really good. I think they\u2019ve been really pleased with his progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Right-hander Grayson Rodriguez, who complained of general soreness late in spring training<\/a>, is with the team in Anaheim and still playing catch, but he hasn\u2019t thrown a bullpen yet.<\/p>\n Right-hander Alek Manoah, whose fingernail was falling off, has been throwing all of his pitches in bullpens in Arizona, Suzuki said.<\/p>\n \u201cI talked to him a couple days ago and he\u2019s excited,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cReady to get to work. The energy, the positivity that he has is awesome. I can\u2019t wait for him to get back in a game situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Infielder Vaughn Grissom, who had a sprained left wrist, had four hits in the first seven at-bats of his rehab assignment at Triple-A. He has played first base and third.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said \u2018I\u2019m good, call me up,\u2019\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cHe missed quite a bit of time in spring training, so we\u2019re trying to build him up slowly and hit all the positions that he needs to play before making a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n Grissom\u2019s rehab assignment expires on April 19, so the Angels will need to make a decision on him by then. He can\u2019t be optioned.<\/p>\n NOTES<\/p>\n The Angels traded right-hander Victor Mederos to the Atlanta Braves for international pool space. Mederos was designated for assignment when the Angels called up Shaun Anderson. The Angels obviously did not believe he would clear waivers, so they instead traded him instead of losing him for nothing. Mederos\u2019 stock rose significantly last year, when the Angels changed his arm angle and he had a 3.41 ERA in the minors<\/a>. He struggled in spring training and gave up seven runs in three innings in his first Triple-A start this season. He still hit 99 mph in that game. \u2026<\/p>\n Right-hander Jack Kochanowicz and Ryan Johnson will make their second starts over the next two days, after a couple of disappointing outings. They said they were nervous for their first time out, so the Angels are hoping they\u2019ll calm down this time. \u201cReally there\u2019s no secret to how you do that,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cI think it\u2019s just experience. I think we\u2019d like to say the more they get out there, the more experience they get, they can handle situations.\u201d<\/p>\n UP NEXT<\/p>\n Mariners (RHP Emerson Hancock, 1-0, 0.00 ERA) at Angels (RHP Jack Kochanowicz, 0-0, 11.25 ERA), Saturday, 6:38 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network, 830 AM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM \u2014 Oswald Peraza has carried spring training into the season, so far. The Angels took a flier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,4,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-661805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-angels","8":"tag-angels","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-angels","12":"tag-laangels","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-angels","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesangels","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116343551186093246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}