Angels Fire Pitching Coach Mike Maddux, Two Assistants Amid Historic Collapse

The Los Angeles Angels made their most drastic coaching shakeup of the season on Tuesday, firing pitching coach Mike Maddux, assistant pitching coach Darryl Scott and bullpen coach Dom Chiti. The move comes just months into Maddux’s one-year contract and lands in the middle of a lost season, with the Angels sitting at 45-74 and owning one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball.

Maddux, who turns 65 later this month, arrived in Anaheim last offseason after helping steer the Texas Rangers’ pitching staff for three years, including their 2023 World Series championship run. The older brother of Hall of Fame right-hander Greg Maddux, he built a 23-year coaching reputation as one of the game’s most respected pitching minds across stops with the Milwaukee Brewers, Rangers, Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals before Angels manager Kurt Suzuki brought him aboard to fix a rotation that finished with a 4.89 ERA in 2025.

Why the Angels Pulled the Trigger

The fix never materialized. Los Angeles enters Tuesday with the seventh-worst ERA in the majors and the most walks of any staff in baseball, numbers that mirror the same control and command issues that plagued the Angels a year ago. Interim general manager John Mozeliak, who took over baseball operations roughly six weeks ago, said the decision followed direct conversations with Suzuki about the direction of the coaching staff.

“After spending time discussing with Kurt where we are as a coaching staff and where we want to go in the future, we felt it was best to make a change,” Mozeliak said in a statement. “With seven weeks remaining, we plan to use this time to evaluate what additional steps are needed to elevate our entire pitching program and best position us for success moving forward.”

Tim Leveque, the pitching coach at the Angels’ Double-A Rocket City affiliate, was named interim pitching coach. Leveque spent nearly two decades in the St. Louis Cardinals organization during Mozeliak’s tenure there, a background that speaks to how closely the interim GM wants his own people evaluating the pitching program. Michael Wuertz, the club’s assistant minor league pitching coordinator, steps in as interim bullpen coach. Scott had been in his first season with the Angels after several years with the Colorado Rockies, while Chiti had rejoined the organization in late 2023.

A Franchise in the Middle of a Teardown

The firings arrive one week after the Angels shipped out eight players from their major league roster, signaling a long-overdue rebuild under Mozeliak’s watch. With the club on pace to challenge the franchise record for losses, the pitching staff overhaul is the clearest sign yet that ownership is willing to blow up the entire baseball operations infrastructure rather than tinker at the margins. Fans tracking the fallout can check the latest MLB odds as the Angels navigate the final seven weeks of a season that’s already been defined by upheaval.

Leveque and Wuertz inherit a staff with little margin for immediate turnaround, but Mozeliak’s language suggests the interim titles are exactly that — a bridge to a more permanent solution once the offseason arrives. Maddux’s exit closes the book on a short and difficult chapter in Anaheim, one that never came close to replicating the success he found in Texas. For an Angels franchise still searching for stability on the mound, the search for answers is now starting over, with seven weeks left to figure out what comes next.