In the opening week, I watched several baseball games. At the same time, I browsed X and found something interesting. The Angels won the first 2 games of the regular season and the last time that they started the season with 2-0 was in 2007.
That truly surprised me and I decided to check again on the great baseball reference website. Well, yes, it’s quite rare to see the Angels start the season with 2-0. So, the last time that the Angels won the first 2 games in the regular season was in 2007. The 2007 Angels, what happened to that team?
Firstly, let’s look back at the opening day lineup in 2007. Gary Matthews Jr. was batting first and he was playing center field. In 2007, he played 140 games for the Angels, hitting .252/.323/.419 with 18 home runs and 72 RBI. Orlando Cabrera was batting second and he was the shortstop. Cabrera finished the season with a .301/.345/.397 slash line. He had 8 home runs and 86 RBI.
In the heart of the lineup, there were Vladimir Guerrero, Garret Anderson, Shea Hillenbrand and Casey Kotchman. Vladimir Guerrero hit .324/.403/.547 with 27 home runs and 125 RBI over 150 games. Garret Anderson batted .297/.336/.492 with 16 home runs and 80 RBI in 108 games. Moreover, Shea Hillenbrand slashed .254/.275/.325 with 3 home runs and 22 RBI in 53 games. Casey Kotchman played 137 games for the Angels, hitting .296/.372/.467 with 11 home runs and 68 RBI.
In addition, Howie Kendrick batted 7th on the 2007 opening day. In 2007, he hit .322/.347/.450 with 5 home runs and 39 RBI in 88 games. Mike Napoli batted 8th and he was behind the plate. Napoli slashed .247/.351/.443 with 10 home runs and 34 RBI in 75 games. Maicer Izturis was the third baseman. In 2007, he played 102 games, hitting .289/.349/.405 with 6 home runs and 51 RBI. On the mound, John Lackey made the first start of the regular season in 2007 and he finished the season with a 3.01 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP over 224 innings. He earned 19 wins in 2007.
As we look at the starting lineup of the Angels on the 2007 opening day, the lineup was a good one. There are some players who finished a season with an OPS of .800 or higher. And some players finished the season with a batting average of .300 or higher. The team did play well in 2007. They finished the season with 94 wins and took 68 losses. They clinched the AL West title in 2007.
So, after winning the first 2 games of the 2007 season, in the first month, the Angels won 15 games and lost 11 times. They finished April with a winning percentage over .500. So far this season, the Angels have already played 22 games. The team now has 11 wins. After playing well in the first 2 games of the 2026 season, the Angels now have a winning percentage of .500. The AL West isn’t an easy division. Let’s see if the Angels could finish the season with a winning percentage of .500 or higher. The last time they did so was in 2015.
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