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Posted at 10:15 AM EST. 

1:05 PM EST. The Angels have scored 28 runs over their last three games and that comes as no surprise, as we have pointed out that no team has struck out less than the Halos this season. While the rest of the league is swinging more aggressively, the Angels have done just the opposite.

Batters have accepted the trade-off between chasing more — and striking out more — in order to make louder contact. Angels batters, however, have been on a different track early in 2019. They own the lowest out-of-zone swing rate in the majors (24.8 percent vs. league average 30.0 percent), the lowest in-zone swing rate (60.9 percent vs. league average 67.3 percent) and, unsurprisingly, the lowest overall swing rate (41.2 percent vs. league average 46.0 percent). The Halos aren’t hacking like their peers, period. Pitchers are fishing out of the zone for swinging strikes and in that regard, the Angels have swung and missed least often of any team in baseball this season by a fairly wide margin. They’ve whiffed 7.2 percent of the time while the league average is over 11 percent. On the flip side, their contact rate is sky high at 82.5 percent — well above the league average of 75.9 percent. The team-wide approach has been selective and deliberate: swing less, whiff less, make more contact. John Means (LHP - BAL) is their next victim.

Means has put up great numbers early on with a 2.48 ERA and a BB/K split of 7/29 in 33 innings covering nine appearances with five of those being starts. Means, an 11th round pick in 2014, is a big 6’3”, 230-pound lefty out of West Virginia University with more of an imposing figure than quality stuff on the mound. It’s a four-pitch mix of mostly average grades that resulted in a lot of hard hit (21.1% line-drive %) and fly ball (43.3%) outcomes last year for Triple-A Norfolk in the International League. While his repertoire has worked in the starting rotation in the minors, his middling repertoire portends a major league bullpen role as a long reliever or lefty specialist, as he held LHB to a .214/.255/.321 slash line over 196 AB’s in 2018. He was pounded last season in the majors over a small sample size and while he did manage a 15/4 K/BB over 13.1 innings this past spring training, he also gave up 4 jacks and 8 ER for a 5.40 ERA. He’s been riding a wave of good fortune with an 84% strand rate and tiny 26% hit rate. The wheels are about to come off.

The Angels called up 22-year-old Griffin Canning (RHP - LAA) 12 days ago week and put him into their starting rotation immediately. Canning lasted just 4.1 innings that day against Toronto while allowing four hits and three earned runs for an ERA of 6.23. He subsequently went 5.1 innings against the Tigers in his second start and allowed two earned runs with a BB/K split of 1/7. The market will see his shaky surface ERA (4.66) but we’re screaming at you to ignore it completely because it means jack. The kid was actually incredibly impressive in his debut, even more so in his second start and and he figures to be even better here.

Canning has no truly plus pitches, but he has five solid ones, and he can throw all five for strikes. If any of those pitches develops into a plus pitch, he could become an ace and that’s likely why he made the 2019 list of the best prospects in many publications. Canning started his pro career in 2018 and jumped from High-A to Double-A and then Triple-A. In three games started this year in Salt Lake before his call-up, he continued to show good dominance, better control than usual, and very solid skills. His fastball has deception in its mid-90s form, and his change-up is the best of his secondary offerings. His slider and curve are low-80s pitches and he repeats his delivery. He is also quite hard to hit, with a career .234 oppBA that got even lower this year. With 75 innings at Triple-A, and with five pitches ready to go, there's no reason to think he cannot stick with the Angels. Griffin Canning has struck out 13 hitters in 9.2 IP, and a matchup against Baltimore's below-average offense vs. RHP is his best yet. The right-hander has issued two walks in two games and his strong chance for a win makes he and the Angels very worthy of getting behind today.

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