Lugo proves he's steady in a pinch with second HR off the bench

SAN DIEGO -- Angels rookie Matthew Lugo wasn’t looking for a slider from Padres reliever Jeremiah Estrada, but he wasn’t surprised to see one.

The night before, Estrada froze Lugo with a first-pitch slider before he whiffed on two fastballs to strike out on three pitches. But on Tuesday night, when Lugo was called upon to pinch-hit in the top of the seventh inning after Jo Adell had tied the game on a line-drive two-out double, he was ready for it.

Sure enough, the first pitch he saw was the same one he had already seen -- a slider middle-middle. Only this time, Lugo put his barrel on it and sent it into the left-field stands to give the Angels a late two-run lead.

“When I go out there, I just try to be aggressive,” Lugo said after the Angels’ 6-4 walk-off loss at Petco Park. “A lot of people try to see a pitch or get in a count. It’s hard to get in counts when your first at-bat is in the eighth inning, seventh inning.

“So I’m ready to go. If I see a good pitch to hit, I try to swing at it.”

That approach has served the 24-year-old well. He became the second player in Angels history to have his first two MLB home runs come as a pinch-hitter, joining Winston Llenas who accomplished the feat across two seasons, 1973-74.

“He’s been very impressive,” manager Ron Washington said. “He’s certainly putting some good at-bats together, and I think we’re going to have to see a lot more of it.”

In all five days since making his Major League debut on his birthday on Friday, Lugo has done something. His first big league hit was an RBI triple on Saturday that was instrumental in getting the win. On Sunday, he hit his first home run after getting called on to pinch-hit in the ninth.

Even on days like Monday, when he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, he still made an impact defensively. During the Padres’ three-run third inning, Lugo fielded a ground ball that rolled into left field for a base hit as Xander Bogaerts rounded third. Lugo knew Bogaerts isn’t the fastest runner, but he’d still have to make an accurate throw to keep another run from scoring.

The throw ended up being a 94.1 mph dart – the fastest outfield assist by any Angels player this season – right into catcher Travis d’Arnaud’s waiting glove to tag Bogaerts out and end the inning.

“It feels good,” Lugo said of his hot start. “I’ve just been trying to control the things that I can control. Keep working on the things that have been good for me and made me produce in the game.

“It’s the same game for me, I’m not trying to do too much at it, just trying to work on the things that work for me.”

On days when he’s pinch-hitting, like on Tuesday, working on his swing is one of the biggest parts of Lugo’s job. He’s not sitting around in the dugout for the first six innings -- he’s hitting in the cage throughout the game, staying ready for when his number’s called.

It’s all part of a process Lugo has kept at since arriving in the Angels’ organization last July as part of the Luis García trade. He played only one game with Triple-A Salt Lake before a thumb injury ended his 2024 season. Then he suffered a setback in the offseason, so he wasn’t surprised when he started 2025 in Triple-A despite a solid spring.

But it didn’t bother him. Lugo just kept working.

“And now I’m here,” he said. “Doing my thing.”