This story was excerpted from Rhett Bollinger’s Angels Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON -- Angels general manager Perry Minasian met with the media early this week to discuss a wide variety of topics related to the start of the season.

The Angels are off to a 7-5 start and are headed on an East Coast road trip against the Red Sox and Yankees. The bullpen fared much better in the club’s series win over the Nationals but was an area of concern after the Angels failed to protect three late leads over their first nine games.

Here are a few highlights of what Minasian had to say:

On the bullpen:

“We’ve had some tough games, but those happen over the course of the season. We like our bullpen. I think when you look at certain things that are indicators of good bullpens like missing bats, that's important. Not walking people is important. We've done both on at a pretty solid level. We need to do a better job of throwing first-pitch strikes, 100 percent. That's really important for a bullpen to be productive but we have a lot of confidence in the guys we have.”

On Jo Adell’s hot start at Triple-A Salt Lake:

“He's been great. He’s made some adjustments. From a swing standpoint, I think Marcus [Thames] and Phil [Plantier] and Tony [Jaramillo] and Jobel [Jimenez] and our Minor League staff, they've done a great job with him. Jo has been outstanding. He worked really hard this offseason. So, I'm glad he's seeing the results he's seeing. At some point, he's going to help us.”

On if there’s a path to the big leagues for Adell right now:

“We take it day by day here and just worry about today. Obviously we have three outfielders on the club that are in everyday roles that have been pretty productive. We feel like they’ll be productive over the course of the year and there's nothing wrong with having a lot of good players. But people do get hurt and things happen. I'd be surprised if we don’t use a Minor Leaguer all year.”

On if Taylor Ward is an option at first base:

“No. We feel really good about Taylor in the outfield. I think he's improving in that area.”

On how Jared Walsh is doing with his program in Utah to help with his headaches and insomnia:

“Jared is working hard. He's doing things gradually improving day in and day out. There's no timeframe to when he'll be back on the field. But this is a quality-of-life type deal. I think the improvements he's been able to make, with some of the issues, have been productive. There will be a point in time, hopefully sooner than later, that he feels good enough to go back out and start doing some baseball activity. We know how good of a player he is and how he can affect this club.”

On if the Angels needs more high velocity relief arms:

“You don't have to throw 90-whatever [mph]. It’s about executing pitches. Would you want a full bullpen with guys throwing 110 and have nasty breaking balls and throw strike one. Absolutely. We all would. But we like our group and we feel with what we’ve done -- our walk rate is six percent out of the bullpen, which is outstanding. So, a 25 percent strikeout rate, six percent walk rate -- those are good things. At the end of the day, I know things are based off results, and I totally understand it. We want to win every game we can. But there will be games over the course of the season that things happen.”