The Los Angeles Angels employ two of the best players in all of baseball in Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. And, as a result, it looked like the Angels were going to get rewarded for having those two players playing well at the same time. They were 54-49 as recently as July 27th and firmly in the Wild Card race. It was that reason the Angels decided to make a playoff push and acquire Lucas Giolito and others in a trade at the trade deadline with the Chicago White Sox.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last. After starting the season 54-49, the Angels quickly slumped soon after making that all-in trade. By the time September came around, the Angels dropped all the way to 64-71. They ended up waiving players like Giolito, Hunter Renfroe, Matt Moore, Reynaldo Lopez and Randal Grichuk once their playoff hopes looked bleak on August 29th, basically a month after making their big trade deadline move, in order to save money and have other teams pay those players' salaries for the rest of the season.

The Angels waived the white flag and yet another historic season from Shohei Ohtani was wasted. They ended the season with an abysmal 73-89 record. In other words, the Angels went 19-40 in their final 59 games of the season, the same stretch the Angels thought they would be making a playoff push. What happened? Who is to blame? There are a few key players to blame for this embarrassing finish.

2) Mike Trout

It's really hard to blame Mike Trout for this season when his major crime was getting injured. But his absence was felt in a major way. The Angels were 45-42 after the last game Trout played before getting hurt on July 3rd. Trout did play another game on August 22nd, but he didn't play another game after that. Essentially, the Angels were 45-42 with Trout and 28-47 without him. The Angels needed Trout healthy and he couldn't help them for almost half the season.

While Mike Trout was still an All-Star this season, his play did take a turn for the worst this season. Trout's .263 batting average, .367 on-base percentage, .490 slugging percentage and .858 OPS were all the worst of his career since his rookie season. Those are still good numbers and near the tops of the Angels' non-Ohtani marks across the club, but they aren't the great, other-worldly numbers baseball fans are accustomed to getting out of Trout. If he was a little better and more available, maybe the Angels would still be playing ball or could've actually stayed in the playoff hunt.

1) Angels pitching not named Shohei Ohtani

On an individual or team level, the Angels simply did not get enough out of their pitching staff. Shohei Ohtani performed; he posted a robust 3.14 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 4.0 WAR, and 11.4 K/9 ratio. He was electric even excluding all the work he did as a hitter this season. But the rest of the Angels' pitching staff didn't help him. The only pitcher not named Ohtani with more than 20 innings pitched on the season and an ERA below 3.5 was Matt Moore, who was a part of the crew the Angels waived in late August to save money. Griffin Canning, Matt Moore, and Chris Devenski were the only pitchers on the team to post a WHIP below 1.25.

The Angels finished the season 23rd in the MLB in ERA (4.64). They were 22nd in opponent's batting average (.252) and were 26th in WHIP (1.42). The only real consistency they got from any of their pitchers came from Shohei Ohtani. That they didn't get much from anybody else hampered their chance to compete and make a playoff run. That's a big reason why their season ended as disappointingly as it did.