"I'll never give up": Reid Detmers enjoying breakout season after tough few years

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Two years ago, Reid Detmers was in Salt Lake City grinding away in Triple-A just two years removed from a breakout sophomore season in the big leagues that featured a no-hitter. 

After starting the 2024 campaign with a 1.19 ERA in his first four starts, he fell apart and got demoted to Triple-A in June once his ERA ballooned to 6.14. While in the minors, he went to work on his mentality. 

Detmers always had the talent to pitch at the highest level — it's what got him drafted 10th overall in 2020 and made him a top 30 prospect in the sport — but it was always the battle between the ears that plagued him. 

But over these last three seasons, Detmers has blossomed into the pitcher the Angels and he believed he could be. 

He's gone from the lowest point of his professional career in 2024, to a bullpen role last year and now he will receive down-ballot American League Cy Young votes this year.

"Rewarding to know that two years ago I got sent down and now I'm back as a starter," Detmers said. "And obviously last year in the bullpen, learning a lot about myself in the bullpen last year, and kind of getting the mentality back. I don't really know what to say. It's been very rewarding."

While down in Triple-A, Detmers leaned on his coaches and fellow teammates to take a step back and dive into where he needs to improve. Those conversations helped him get his mentality to a place where he can find success again. 

"Staying in the right headspace," Detmers said. "Don't let things linger around too long. I'm not saying I have it figured out. But once you kind of know how to control your emotions and stuff, it helps a lot. So being down there, having to not restart, but restart kind of, I would say helped me a lot. 

"Obviously it wasn't ideal. It wasn't fun. But you have to make the most out of it if you want to continue your career."

Success isn't linear. And the process of turning around his career wasn't linear either. 

Detmers returned to the big leagues in September of 2024, and it wasn't pretty. He made five starts and pitched to an 8.14 ERA to close out his season. 

Once spring training ended in 2025, Detmers cracked the big league roster, but the Angels moved him to the bullpen. 

Since he had never been in the bullpen before, Detmers had to learn on the fly at the big-league level. And he had to deal with a learning moment right away.

In late April and into May, Detmers had a horrific stretch where he allowed 12 earned runs over three appearances while recording only one out.

But in his next appearance, then Angels manager Ron Washington handed the ball to Detmers and pounded Detmers' chest while telling him that it was his time. Detmers tossed a scoreless inning and held a 2.19 ERA for the remainder of the season.

"It was mainly just, 'hey, trust yourself,'" Detmers said of the mentality needed to succeed in the bullpen. "'You've got really good stuff. Just attack them. It doesn't matter what you're throwing. Just throw it in the zone. Just attack them. Stop trying to work around guys.' So that was kind of the mentality of it. Just kind of changed the way I saw things a little bit."

It was a mentality that Detmers said at the beginning of the season he wanted to take with him as he rejoined the Angels' rotation to start 2026. It's helped Detmers be more convicted while on the mound, and the results speak for themselves. 

Detmers has a 3.47 ERA over 31 starts and 179 innings, which are all career bests. His 204 strikeouts are the fourth most in the American League and seventh in all of baseball. 

He especially took off after the All-Star break. His 2.05 ERA is the seventh-lowest in baseball in the second half and he had a stretch of seven consecutive quality starts. 

"It's just him knowing himself more," Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. "The more he's out there, the more he's understanding himself, the maturity, and all those types of things, and you're watching him put it all together. I feel like he's only getting better, honestly."

A big key to his success this season has been the slider. It's always been an effective pitch, but the slider has taken a jump this season.

Hitters are hitting .183 against the slider and are swinging and missing at it 36.1% of the time. Detmers has gotten a strikeout with the slider 39.6% of the time.

"I just play off the fastball," Detmers said. "Everything's off the fastball command. If your fastball command's there, everything else is going to play pretty well. So having the good fastball command and then playing that off the slider or the slider off the fastball and all of my other pitches, to be honest with you, it helps a lot."

Another difference in Detmers this season is that he has a lower arm angle. He's pitched with a 41-degree arm angle this season, which is his lowest since 2023. Although it's considerably lower than the previous two years, it wasn't a conscious effort to lower it this year. 

"I was tired of messing around with the arm angle and just kind of let the body do whatever's natural," Detmers said. "So I just kind of stopped worrying about the arm, get the mechanics in the right spot where it's consistent, and then everything else will just fall in place."

Detmers has been the leader of the pack for an Angels rotation that has turned heads this year. 

The Angels' rotation has the second-lowest ERA in baseball since the All-Star break, and the 11th-lowest on the whole season thanks to an influx of young pitchers taking form in the big leagues. 

As Detmers stood at his locker and talked about how great the young arms in the rotation have been, the 27-year-old had a realization that he's no longer one of the young kids. He's the second-oldest pitcher on the staff behind Yusei Kikuchi. 

"I guess I'm an older guy, so it feels weird to say that," Detmers said. "Seeing the young guys come in and hold their place and show what they can do, it's pretty cool to watch. Obviously, (Ryan Johnson) is doing what he's doing in the second half. (Walbert) Ureña has been doing it all year. And then (George)Klaassen, like everybody else, it's fun to watch. We've got a bright future."

If you went back to draft day in 2020 and said that Detmers would lead the Angels rotation and get down-ballot Cy Young votes, it wouldn't have been that much of a surprise. But these last few seasons have put those projections in doubt at times. 

Getting sent down to Triple-A only two years after putting his name on the map with a no-hitter and a quality season at 22 years old is the lowest point of his professional career. But it was a needed wake-up call that helped plant the seeds of the success he's enjoyed this season. 

"Starting off the season so well that year and then kind of just going straight downhill the next six whatever starts or however many it was and ending down in Triple-A for three months definitely wasn't easy," Detmers said. "But it taught me a lot about myself. How to keep trust in the process.

"I'll never give up."