Soler’s grand slam blowout

The Angels were up 6-2 in Cincinnati when Jorge Soler came up in the eighth inning with the bases loaded, and one swing turned a solid road win into a 10-2 blowout over the Reds on Friday, April 10. Soler’s grand slam landed in the left-field seats at Great American Ball Park and capped a five-run inning. (mlb.com) (espn.com) That shot came after the Angels had already chipped away all night. Zach Neto hit a two-run homer, Josh Lowe added a solo homer, and Soler had doubled earlier before scoring on a Yoán Moncada infield single. (espn.com) (abcnews.com) The game also ended a weird little streak: Los Angeles had lost seven straight games at Great American Ball Park before Friday night. A 10-2 score in a park built for home runs is one thing; doing it while snapping a seven-game skid in that building is another. (espn.com) (abcnews.com) The quieter reason the blast mattered is that Jack Kochanowicz kept the Reds from making any of this urgent. The Angels right-hander went seven innings, allowed one run on two hits, and left with a 5-1 lead before the eighth-inning pile-on. (espn.com) (mlb.com) Soler is not some surprise bench bat who ran into one pitch. Baseball-Reference lists the 34-year-old Cuban slugger as a former All-Star and World Series Most Valuable Player, and the Angels signed him through the 2026 season on a three-year, $42 million deal. (baseball-reference.com) That is why one grand slam clip spreads fast in April. When a lineup with Mike Trout, Neto, Moncada, Lowe, and Soler finally strings together three homers and 10 runs, it looks less like a random hot night and more like the version of the Angels they were trying to build. (baseball-reference.com) (espn.com) Friday’s win also pushed Los Angeles back to.500 at 5-5, according to Baseball-Reference’s team page. Ten games is a tiny sample, but early-season standings can swing hard on one night when a close game turns into an eight-run margin in a single inning. (baseball-reference.com 1) (baseball-reference.com 2) The highlight everyone is passing around is the slam, but the shape of the game was simpler than that: seven strong innings from Kochanowicz, traffic on base from Moncada and Soler, and then one 34-year-old power hitter clearing all four bags at once. On April 10, that was enough to turn an Angels win into one of the loudest Major League Baseball clips of the week. (mlb.com) (espn.com)