Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t win the next two series against the division rival Mariners. Don’t even begin to think that I have any sort of empathy for their playoff drought or their underdog status or the fact that Seattle is responsible for some incredible music. The Angels desperately need to win these games and make their run at a slumping Athletics club while they have the chance.
They should not, however, sweep both series.
The immediate ramifications would be glorious of course. The Mariners’ playoff hopes would be all but entirely dashed as they fall 5 games behind the Angels at the very least. With the A’s seemingly likely to go somewhere in the vicinity of 4-2 in their stretch against the last place Rangers and plummeting Indians, the Halos will make up 2 crucial games of the 4.5 they are behind going into a 2-game set against Oakland. They might even have some magical thing called momentum on their side. Frankly, it’s obvious why the thought would be tantalizing.
Now let’s take a breath for a second and consider the long term. With their 8th loss in their last 9 games, the Mariners will have dropped 2 games below .500. After 2 games in Colorado where the Rockies sport a 31-17 home record, superior to every team in the American League but the White Sox, it wouldn’t exactly be unreasonable to assume that the Mariners are going to sell. With the Mariners moving several of their aging and overperforming pieces that we’ve come to know and despise—not to us, mind you—Seattle sinks to typical Seattle levels and breaks apart. All seems swell for a good minute or two.
Now the Halos have the opportunity to beat up on a weakling team with no real assets for the rest of the season. But wait—what happened to all of our opportunities? The only two series that we have against Seattle rest of season come in the last 9 games of the year.
Meanwhile, Houston has 12 games left to play and Oakland 13 against a suddenly barren Pacific Northwest team that intends to have their real window open up in 2022. The Angels have now singlehandedly gifted two additional series against a tanking team to the rivals with which they areso desperately battling.
5-1 and 4-2 in the next 6 games do not lose enough games to make this point moot. A Mariners squad fighting tooth and nail in vain in 6-7 more games against Oakland and Houston than they have against us is not to be underestimated. This is all before I even mention the fact that the Mariners also play a full 3-4 games against every single AL East contender between August and September. Having one fewer tanking team matters more than ever to us down the stretch.
If the Mariners lose just 1 game over the next 6, they are at .500. If they lose merely 2, we still probably maintain our current favorable position relative to the A’s. These sorts of mind games will be absolutely critical to our postseason run.
This may seem like a joke, but the Angels need middling teams in tough divisions like the Mariners, Yankees, and Blue Jays to continue to scratch away at more winning ones like an animal backed into a corner just like they need the Angels to do the same. The moment the borderline teams start hard-selling is the moment that the rest of a division runs away with the playoffs. The Angels won’t have enough advantageous resources, Seattle games, left relative to the A’s and Astros to take advantage of this. In short, they literally cannot afford to sweep the Mariners twice in July.
PLEASE TAKE THIS POST DOWN IT IS CURSED!!
Dammit, Rick. You had to post this, and Joe read it. Take this down now!
Immediately following the 1 loss we needed is the LEAST opportune time to take it down!
I say we just beat the Mariners so bad in all three games that it counts as six wins and then we feast on their broken souls while we watch the draft.
Should they do a Major League spiel and have a cardboard of Arte and everytime they win, they tear off a piece?
Might motivate them to make the playoffs
We will win some games.
The Tao of TAME
Only one stat matters when it comes to making the playoffs: having the most wins. Which means you try to win the most games you can. Every game. The rest is just overthink and overanalysis. Fun as an exercise I suppose. But not something to aim for.
One series at a time, 2 of 3 this weekend…….and F’ ing don’t do this over the weekend.
https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1410677082435117059?s=20
Did you know that all birds have diarrhea?
When I was in Boston, we visited a beach near the harbor. All over the place I seen these tiny cigarello cigar sized things. “Boy they sure do smoke a lot of that shit in Boston” I thought.
Then … “HISSSSSSSSSSS” and I spotted the Canadian Geese.
Not all birds, at least all the time, have the runs, but some will make you.
Birds have only one pipe for both, same hole, same time.
Sounds like an efficient way eliminate waste.
For a while that one person for us was Bedrosian.
It was even in his name; except it was a bed and not a pool.
Somewhat unrelated, but I did not realize what insane home-road split Rox have this year until you mentioned it. :O
I’ll take ever W I can get. Teams get hot (Seattle right now) and teams get cold (us in June) and when those two occur is somewhat difficult to predict.
It is easier to assume a fully loaded Mariners squad will win more games vs. Houston and Oakland, but I’ll take a guaranteed game in hand over an assumption any day.
Nope. You don’t put your hopes in other teams making up for your losses.
Win every game you can!
I’m not bagging, this is exactly the kind of overthink I do all the time. But if the Angels get into a situation where we can compete we will make it by purely putting our heads down and trying to win every game. If we are mess enough to try this we aren”t gonna win anyway.
Also, I doubt we catch Houston no matter what we do.
Too many variables. I just hope they win every game.
I’ll be at the Sunday game. This series reminds me of late 2002 when the M’s were in first hosting the Halos for a weekend series. We were one game back. Halos swept and left town in first place. I was at that Sunday game. The locals were crushed. This was one year after the M’s win 116 games, but didn’t make the world series.
Hoping to watch the final game of another sweep.
Next week, both the Dust Devils and Bees will be in town. Okay, 30 miles north of me and 30 miles south of me. Will catch one game each. September has me in Birmingham catching the Trash Pandas at Barons. Not making it to SoCal until October, so no 66ers for me. Maybe next year.
Awesome, fortunate to be a relatively short distance from different levels of minor league towns along with an MLB park. Go Halos.
Say what? Sorry – makes no sense to me. Do I expect to sweep? No. But every game matters. If someone said, you can be 4-2 or 6-0, call me crazy, but I take 6-0.
this is the correct answer. Thank you.
The argument here is that one extra win for the Angels will gift Wild Card rivals potentially 2+ wins. If you believe the premise, the logic makes sense.
we don’t know what’ll happen. If we could predict what each club will do from now until the end of the season there’d be no need to play or to watch. What if Oakland gets an injury that costs them wins and we end up one short? Because we lost a couple to Seattle? What if Kelenic comes back up for Seattle and it works this time and he hits a walk-off against Houston?
What if we take 4 of 6 from Seattle and Jerry sells anyway? And then they lose those games to Oakland and Houston and we’ve lost 2 that, in the end, we’d have preferred to win?
There are too many loose variables. What if we win 4 of 6 and the Mariners lose to those clubs with what they’ve currently got? We don’t know that they’d win any more or less and preferring to lose any to Seattle in the hope that it’ll pay off by them beating other clubs is, in my opinion, gambling for an inside straight.
“Hoping” to lose 2 to Seattle would mean we’d have two less wins and therefore Seattle would have to take an *extra* 3 wins vs Oakland *and* Houston to make it worth it.
It’s better to get as many wins as we can, when we can.
This is just a complicated way of saying “maybe we shouldn’t trade for Max Scherzer. Maybe Dylan Bundy will be better”
Yes, there’s a chance, and yes, there are lots of variables, but I think Rick lays out his arguments pretty well.
Obviously people will quibble about the likelihood of it all
we have no guarantee that we won’t be swept.
but I disagree with your extreme example because it’s too extreme. There is quite a difference between having Scherzer vs Bundy (with the objective to win as many as possible) and thinking it might be better to lose a couple on the conjecture that maybe at a future date Seattle might sneak 6 extra wins.
It’s not extreme. Everything is probabilities. If someone crunches the probabilities and it turns out Rick’s way is better, so be it. But we haven’t, so saying it “seems” wrong is not a definitive way to go about things.
For example, I can point to the fact that Bundy’s 2020 was better than Scherzer’s 2020 and conclude that Bundy will pitch better than Scherzer the rest of this season. That doesn’t make it right. But it’s a justification.
not all probabilities are equal. I know you know that. And I also know you know that I know you know that.
I’d say the answer is probably aliens.
lol fair. i’m trying to make a specific point and it’s the internet, so i’ll let it go. you know what you’re talking about here, so it’s all good 👍
If we were to win 4 or more that really helps our cause as we have Blue Jays and Indians to get by in the standings as I believe the A’s will keeping on keeping on. Just because we wish Trouty is good from the Gate does not mean he will be. And who know what injuries we may suffer through the second half. I truly hope for two sweeps over Jerry’s team.
GO HALOS !
We just don’t have that level of a roster to think we can sweep any team.
There is just not enough consistency on either side of the plate to make me feel that we are dominating enough to sweep any series.
But we might be getting there. Just hope we don’t peak too soon, and then slide away from any goals.
Trout will be back soon. This team has a real chance this year to make the playoffs. Finally…
And I will be super happy with a postseason to look forward to for once in what seems like an eternity. They just need to keep this momentum going.
Trout will need a minimum of 10 games to start being Trout again at the plate.
If rehab is done right -letting the player actually heal properly with the right amount of time on the IL; not being rushed back- the player should be ready right out of the box. We see it all the time, on other teams.
Mike should be hungry enough to play again, after missing all the excitement and success that the team has had in his absence.
He’ll bust through the line, passing the salad bar, shoving past that sushi flown in from Japan, he has only one thing on his mind. Mike only takes a side glance at the chocolate fondue, rushing forward towards his goal, to the heat lamps. Specifically, what is under the heat lamps. The Prime Rib, all you can eat. And Mike is hungry, man.
Depends. Obviously, Trout at 70% is better than whatever else we trot out there. So there is “benefit” in not doing it “right.”
A return to the I.L. is the top choice on the regular menu. No prime rib on the regular menu. But there is that Sizzler steak, prepared only one way, Rendone.
What do prefer?
I personally think Rendon was mostly healthy every time he returned from the IL and that his injuries are unrelated! But that’s just me. Others may disagree
Probably a good guess…
Do they not do rehab starts in the minors any more?
If he is supposed to be back just after the All Star break then I would think he would have already started his rehab assignment at either Salt Lake or The 66ers. I have not heard that he has done either. We will see how it plays out.
2023, is after the All Star break
Interesting thought exercise. I don’t think the Angels will sweep the Mariners by any means. However, i would always prefer they did. I’d rather have the extra wins now than worry about what the Mariners might do before the trade deadline.
I would also add to your thought process. What will Perry do at the deadline? The closer we are to Oakland, the more likely he adds to the team. The further we are from Oakland the more likely he is to sell guys like Iglesias, Iglesias, Suzuki, and Cobb (and others). These games don’t just impact what the Mariners do, they also impact what the Angels do.
Interesting chess match thinking. The reality is that Seattle is a good team – maybe even very good. I’d be satisfied with 3-3, happy with 4-2 and over-the-moon with 5-1. The teams are close enough that it should be a good series – but the Mariners will be super pumped to beat up on the Halos. I would rank this as a pick ‘em from a betting perspective.
Look, I am not one to ever be overconfident. I don’t think Seattle is very talented. In fact, we are much, much more talented than they are. But of course, the games have to be played on the field. If Seattle took 2 of 3 from us I would not be shocked in the least.
They have been very lucky, but they have also found a way to win alot of close games. The Mariners have a record of 19-8 in one run games! This is how I explain how a team who is horrible offensively and really bereft of talent can be four games over .500 and in third place. Honestly, I don’t see them being able to maintain this….
All that said, again, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them win this series. They are just so fucking lucky. One could say they are gritty, scrappy and resilient, and I suppose those things are true. But really they have reached this point in the season with their standing by doing it with smoke and mirrors. With this team you have to get up early and then just pound them into submission because they don’t give up.
As for tonight, I am a little concerned because Cobb’s Home/Road splits are not in our favor. Cobb has a 2.48 ERA at home and a horrid 7.77 ERA on the road !! Suffice to say, even the crappy hitting Mariners will probably score runs off of him. While Cobb has a very good 1st inning ERA of .075 he becomes very hittable in the 2nd and 3rd innings carrying an ERA of 6.00 and 6.75 in those frames respectively.
I just hope the soft-tossing lefty Gonzales does not shut us down like he has done so often in the past.