Angels' Zach Neto will have tests on shoulder after making error, leaving game in 9th inning
Neto bobbled Romy Gonzalez's grounder to short before firing his throw over the head of first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. The Angels' rising star quickly bent over in pain, and he left the game after consulting with the training staff.
After the Angels won 3-2 on Christian Moore's 10th-inning homer, Neto said he jammed his right shoulder while sliding headfirst into second on a failed stolen base attempt in the eighth inning.
'I wasn't feeling good (and) probably should have taken myself out of the game,' Neto said. 'But being the competitor that I am, I wanted to try to gut it out. There's a time and place to be a hero, and there's a time and place to get out of the game, and that was probably the time to get out of the game. ... It's feeling good (now). I mean, it's not feeling great, but we're going to see how I feel tomorrow morning, and hopefully I come feeling great.'
Neto believes he will have an MRI exam.
'When he made that throw, we just didn't like the way it looked, so we took him out for cautionary (reasons),' Angels acting manager Ray Montgomery said. 'We weren't going to let him go back out there after that.'
Neto injured his right shoulder last September and underwent surgery that forced him to miss the first three weeks of the season. He has been one of the Angels' best players for the second straight year, batting .278 with 12 homers, 29 RBIs and an .820 OPS.
'There's always a concern with it being the shoulder I just had my surgery on, but I'm going to be hopeful,' Neto said.
Los Angeles closer Kenley Jansen escaped the jam created by Neto's error, keeping the game tied 1-1. Marcelo Mayer drove in a run for Boston in the 10th, but Moore walked it off with his second homer in three innings.
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Tyler mentions a friend who is basically playing for free, stranded below the longest rung of the minor league ladder. But he still puts on a uniform every day. 'He plays for the love of the game and just because it's all he knows,' Tyler said. 'One of the things that Dan asks me that I ask my friend is, 'do you like what you're doing?' And at that point it's not about your career longevity or how much money you're making. 'As long as you're happy playing and you're making ends meet, then go for it.' Ardell wasn't happy playing, so he walked away. Three decades later with the love and support of a wife who saw baseball not as a sport but as a metaphor for life, as a game where the goal is to get home safely, Ardell began to understand the magic, too. His one month in the majors led him to a career prosperous enough that he could help others, one that still fills his mailbox with letters from fans and one that has given him the wisdom to counsel other 23-year-olds to keep putting on the uniform as long as it fits. Make a positive difference in the lives of others. 'It was a very inconsequential part of my life that was very consequential to other people,' Ardell said of his one month in the majors. 'I think of it every day.'
