{"id":224973,"date":"2026-03-18T07:37:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224973\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T07:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:37:19","slug":"angels-avoid-major-zach-neto-injury-ahead-of-opening-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224973\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels Avoid Major Zach Neto Injury Ahead of Opening Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto (9) makes the play against the Cleveland Guardians in the first inning at Tempe Diablo Stadium.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0ce7c78d1623a3b8481d2193895103c4.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto (9) makes the play against the Cleveland Guardians in the first inning at Tempe Diablo Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Angels nearly lost star shortstop Zach Neto to injury just before Opening Day of the 2026 season. Neto slid headfirst into home plate during Saturday\u2019s game against the Seattle Mariners and injured his left wrist.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>This was eerily similar to when Neto slid headfirst into second base towards the end of the 2024 season. He injured his shoulder, which required surgery in the offseason and sidelined him for the first 18 games of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately for the Angels and Neto, tests revealed the 25-year-old only suffered a minor sprain in his left wrist. He could return to the Angels\u2019 lineup for Tuesday\u2019s game against the Chicago Cubs or Wednesday\u2019s game against the Milwaukee Brewers, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/zach-neto-injures-hand-with-awkward-slide\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:according to MLB\u2019s Rhett Bollinger;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;according to MLB\u2019s Rhett Bollinger&quot;}\" class=\"link \">according to MLB\u2019s Rhett Bollinger<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel good, and it\u2019s definitely a learning experience for me,\u201d Neto said, per Bollinger. \u201cDon\u2019t slide headfirst in Spring Training. Maybe get a bigger lead next time at first base. I caused this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Angels manager Kurt Suzuki told reporters he was surprised to learn that Neto is be able to return so quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was shocked,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cHe came and said he was good. That was scary. But good news, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto (9) makes the play against the Cleveland Guardians in the first inning at Tempe Diablo Stadium.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"373\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5c39d9ae0cbae39365a51e8738ba0910.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto (9) makes the play against the Cleveland Guardians in the first inning at Tempe Diablo Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Neto Wants to Stay Healthy For the Entire 2026 Season<\/p>\n<p>Neto is going into the fourth season of his career with the Angels in 2026. One of his goals is to <a href=\"https:\/\/lasportsreport.com\/angels\/250864\/zach-neto-wants-the-angels-to-prove-people-wrong-in-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:remain healthy;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;remain healthy&quot;}\" class=\"link \">remain healthy<\/a> all season long after missing 18 games at the beginning and 15 games at the end of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p>Despite missing multiple games with injuries, Neto hit a career-high 26 home runs in 128 games last season. The season prior in 2024, he recorded a career-high 30 stolen bases in a career-high 155 games. If he can stay healthy in 2026, Neto could complete the first 30-30 season of his career.<\/p>\n<p>Neto has also never earned an All-Star selection but staying healthy would certainly help him get there.<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto (9) makes the play against the Cleveland Guardians in the first inning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2845,3672,10900,2866,54,56726,58,14504],"class_list":["post-224973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-kurt-suzuki","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-rhett-bollinger","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-zach-neto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}