That's the split screen of this series: Baltimore still projects as the better team mid-teardown, while the Angels are exactly who they said they'd be at the deadline. Los Angeles snapped a 4-game skid with a 3-0 shutout of Milwaukee, but the bigger story is a 43-69 record and, after years of buying at every deadline, actually selling.
Baltimore's form card tells its own story of whiplash — a lopsided loss to Detroit followed by a wild comeback win, then a pair of shutout losses to Philadelphia to close out the stretch. That's a team playing station-to-station baseball with its rotation and catching depth reshuffled inside a week.
The injury list hasn't done Baltimore any favors either. Ryan Mountcastle is out for months with an oblique strain on top of the broken foot that already cost him half the season, Samuel Basallo is dealing with shoulder inflammation, and Zach Eflin isn't pitching again until 2027 after Tommy John surgery. Povich, for his part, hasn't started a big-league game since May. None of that changes the standings gap — Baltimore's still well clear of a last-place Angels team with nothing left to sell.