{"id":706467,"date":"2026-05-23T08:48:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/706467\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T08:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:48:22","slug":"wade-meckler-homers-makes-sliding-catch-in-debut-for-hometown-angels-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/706467\/","title":{"rendered":"Wade Meckler homers, makes sliding catch in debut for hometown Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Fantasy met reality for Wade Meckler in his debut for the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night when he hit a three-homer<\/a> in the first inning and Mike Trout greeted him at home plate with a high-five.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s pretty surreal,\u201d Meckler said after the Angels\u2019 9-6 victory over the Texas Rangers. \u201cYou grow up watching the guy on TV every day for 10 years, and all of a sudden he\u2019s your teammate. It\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meckler, the 26-year-old who played at nearby Anaheim Esperanza High School, was called up from Triple-A Salt Lake to replace the struggling Josh Lowe in left field earlier Friday.<\/p>\n

Meckler raced toward the left-field line and made a sliding catch<\/a> of Brandon Nimmo\u2019s fly ball before crashing into the wall in foul territory to end the top of the first.<\/p>\n

Zach Neto led off the first with the first of his two homers, and Meckler capped the four-run inning by driving a 98-mph fastball from two-time NL Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom into the right-field seats for his first big league homer and a 4-0 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWade Meckler set the tone for the game today,\u201d winning pitcher Grayson Rodriguez said. \u201cNeto\u2019s leadoff homer was great, but Wade hitting that ball off deGrom, that\u2019s what got me going, like, put it in four-wheel drive and let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meckler drew a four-pitch walk in the third and reached on an infield single in the fifth before being replaced by Jose Siri in the top of the ninth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was sick,\u201d Angels catcher Logan O\u2019Hoppe said. \u201cIt was an awesome homer for him. The energy he brought in spring training was contagious, and he picked up right where he left off with the boys here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Fantasy met reality for Wade Meckler in his debut for the Los Angeles Angels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,226,582,403,3921,1397,1165,446,3223,3507,774,56,3224,3222,603,4,9501,9496,39138,9499,51590,88770,2052],"class_list":["post-706467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-angels","tag-angels","tag-baseball","tag-brandon-nimmo","tag-grayson-rodriguez","tag-jacob-degrom","tag-jose-siri","tag-josh-lowe","tag-la","tag-la-angels","tag-laangels","tag-logan-ohoppe","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesangels","tag-mike-trout","tag-mlb","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-wade-meckler","tag-wade-meckler-angels-debut","tag-zach-neto"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116623029248119201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706467","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=706467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}