Autopsy of Angels’ Tyler Skaggs Reveals Opioids in His System

Skaggs’s body was found in a room at the Angels’ team hotel in the early afternoon on July 1, hours before the team was to open a series against the Rangers. The police said they found Skaggs dead after responding to a call about an unconscious male. He was discovered fully clothed, and the police said at the time that they did not suspect foul play or that he had killed himself.

His death stunned the Angels. The team’s game that night was postponed and the Angels quickly moved to a new hotel. When they returned to the field the next day, the Angels hung Skaggs’s jersey in their dugout and carved his initials into the back of the pitcher’s mound. The Angels owner Arte Moreno called Skaggs’s death “a punch in the heart,” and when the team played its next game in Anaheim, Skaggs’s mother, Debbie, threw the ceremonial first pitch.

Every player wore Skaggs’ No. 45 that night, and pitchers Taylor Cole and Felix Pena combined for a no-hitter.

“I feel like we have an angel looking down on us,” Pena said in Spanish on the field after the last out.

Brad Ausmus, the Angels manager, called it one of the most special moments he had experienced in 25 years in baseball. He also said, before that game, that the reason Skaggs died would not matter to him when it was revealed.

“At this point, I don’t really care,” Ausmus told reporters then. “His loss is his loss, and there’s an emptiness regardless of the cause. I’m not in any rush to find out. All I know is Tyler Skaggs is no longer here. He had a lot of friends and family that cared about him a lot. The reason he died isn’t what hurts; the fact that he died is what hurts.”

Skaggs made 96 starts across seven major-league seasons, going 28-38 with a 4.41 E.R.A. But as a young left-hander, he still held great promise, and he beat the Toronto Blue Jays and the St. Louis Cardinals in consecutive road starts in the weeks before his death, allowing one run and no walks over a combined 12 1/3 innings.

Source: The New York Times

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Autopsy • Tyler Skaggs • Opioid • Texas Rangers (baseball) • Death • Crime • Suicide • Death • Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim • Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim • Dugout (baseball) • Baseball field • Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim • Arte Moreno • Anaheim, California • Ceremonial first pitch • Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County • Félix Peña • No-hitter • Brad Ausmus • Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim • Baseball • Tyler Skaggs • Earned run average • Handedness • Toronto Blue Jays • St. Louis Cardinals • Road (sports) • Starting pitcher • Jemile Weeks • Run (baseball) • Base on balls • Innings pitched •