{"id":646031,"date":"2026-05-03T23:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T23:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/646031\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T23:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T23:40:08","slug":"angels-place-yusei-kikuchi-on-15-day-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/646031\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels Place Yusei Kikuchi On 15-Day Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prior to today\u2019s game with the Mets, the Angels placed left-hander Yusei Kikuchi<\/a> on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to April 30) due to left shoulder inflammation.\u00a0 Left-hander Tayler Saucedo<\/a> had his contract selected from Triple-A to fill Kikuchi\u2019s 26-man roster spot and fill the open spot on the Halos\u2019 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

An IL trip seemed likely once Kikuchi left his start last Wednesday after just two innings of work.\u00a0 As MLB.com\u2019s Rhett Bollinger<\/a> noted, Kikuchi\u2019s velocity was 1.3mph lower than usual on Wednesday, so it seemed like something wasn\u2019t quite right from the jump when the southpaw took the mound.<\/p>\n

Kikuchi underwent an MRI on Friday but Angels general manager Perry Minasian didn\u2019t have any updates on the results when speaking with Bollinger and other reporters.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re just waiting on how it progresses.\u00a0 He\u2019s getting looked at and he\u2019ll get looked at again,\u201d Minasian said.<\/p>\n

The injury adds to what has already been an uninspiring beginning to Kikuchi\u2019s 2026 season.\u00a0 Over seven starts and 31 innings of work, Kikuchi has a 5.81 ERA, 23.2% strikeout rate, and 9.9% walk rate, plus other secondary metrics<\/a> that generally sit only slightly above or below the league average.\u00a0 Kikuchi\u2019s 4.16 SIERA is more reflective of his overall performance, as his actual ERA has been inflated by some bad batted-ball luck (.352 BABIP).<\/p>\n

Led by Jose Soriano<\/a>\u2018s sterling work, the Los Angeles rotation has been pretty decent this year despite a number of injuries that thinned out the depth chart.\u00a0 Kikuchi joins Grayson Rodriguez<\/a>, Ryan Johnson<\/a>, and Alek Manoah<\/a> on the 15-day IL, leaving Caden Dana<\/a> as perhaps the likeliest Triple-A candidate to be called up as a replacement starter.\u00a0 Minasian said the team hadn\u2019t yet decided on a replacement, but since Dana last pitched on Thursday, he might line up well for Kikuchi\u2019s spot.<\/p>\n

Saucedo was signed to a minor league contract in January, and the lefty is now in line for his first MLB action of the 2026 season.\u00a0 Saucedo has appeared in each of the previous five seasons, and had good numbers out of Seattle\u2019s bullpen in 2023-24 before stumbling to a 7.43 ERA over 13 1\/3 innings for the Mariners in 2025.\u00a0 Between the lack of production and a two-month injury absence due to a lat strain, it was essentially a lost year for Saucedo, culminating in a non-tender from the Mariners in November.<\/p>\n

A .378 BABIP certainly contributed to Saucedo\u2019s struggles in 2025, particularly since the southpaw is a grounder specialist with a 56.2% career grounder rate.\u00a0 Saucedo has always had so-so control at best, but his okay strikeout ability and his knack for inducing grounders could lead to better results if he gets even average batted-ball luck, like his .298 BABIP from 2023-24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prior to today\u2019s game with the Mets, the Angels placed left-hander Yusei Kikuchi on the 15-day injured list…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82,54790,164323],"class_list":["post-646031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tayler-saucedo","tag-yusei-kikuchi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}