Jack Kochanowicz is scheduled to start Monday as the Los Angeles Angels open a three-game series at the Chicago White Sox, the club trying to arrest a slump that has flattened its season so far.
The matchup — angels vs white sox at Guaranteed Rate Field — arrives with the Angels 12-17 and mired in a slide: they have lost seven of their last eight games and dropped three consecutive series. The club also made two roster moves Sunday morning, designating Jordan Romano for assignment and letting go of Shaun Anderson, signaling bullpen urgency ahead of the road trip.
The weight of those moves is immediate. No Angels starter worked into the sixth inning over the weekend, and each yielded at least three earned runs. Relief failures compounded the problem: Drew Pomeranz blew a three-run lead in the ninth on Sunday, and Joey Lucchesi, called up the same day, surrendered a one-run lead in extra innings.
Meanwhile, the Angels’ catching picture took a hit Saturday when Logan O’Hoppe suffered a left wrist injury on a foul ball while catching and was placed on the 10-day injured list. Sebastián Rivero was called up to back up Travis d’Arnaud—an in-season substitution that narrows roster flexibility during a stretch when every outing matters.
The rotation set for the series is Kochanowicz on Monday, José Soriano on Tuesday and Yusei Kikuchi on Wednesday. Soriano enters with startling early-season numbers: a 0.24 ERA through his first starts. Kikuchi, by contrast, has a 6.21 ERA through his first six starts. Those divergent figures will shape how the Angels approach each game and how long the club trusts the bullpen in late innings.
The White Sox arrive at the same crossroads. Chicago opened the series with an 11-17 record and sits fourth in the AL Central after losing a home series to the Washington Nationals. Still, their recent offense has flashed power: they hit eight home runs during a three-game set against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and rookie Munetaka Murakami set a league mark by becoming the first rookie to hit 11 home runs before May. Miguel Vargas and Colson Montgomery are also reported as off to solid starts in the White Sox lineup, giving Chicago lineup depth even as its pitching remains uneven.
Context matters: the Angels’ rough stretch is not just a handful of losses. It is a pattern of short starts, multi-run innings allowed by starters, and late-game reliever collapses. The DFA of Romano and Anderson was framed around bullpen concern, but the pitching staff’s instability goes beyond a couple of names on the roster sheet. The club’s rotation and relief corps both produce holes that opposing lineups have exploited.
The tension inside this matchup is plain. José Soriano’s microscopic ERA suggests the rotation might have an answer, yet no starter lasted into the sixth inning over the weekend, and the bullpen has repeatedly failed to hold leads. The Angels called up Lucchesi and then watched him give up a decisive run in extra innings the same day; they removed two relief options Sunday morning and still lost from late-game advantages. That clash — promising starts on the surface versus recurring late-inning breakdowns — is the precise fault line the series could either widen or repair.
What happens next is simple and consequential: the Angels need length from their starters and cleaner ninth-inning work. If Kochanowicz can give the staff time and Soriano’s early-season dominance continues, the club might steady. If Kikuchi’s struggles persist and the bullpen keeps surrendering leads, the Angels will return from Chicago with more questions and fewer options. This three-game set will show whether the roster moves and the patchwork catching arrangement are enough to stop the skid, or whether the Angels’ early-season slide will deepen into a longer problem.
