LA Angels Thursday News Crash: Player Poll

Well, it is both an exciting time and a precarious time for Angels baseball, and especially for being an Angels fan.

With the win over the A’s yesterday we pushed our division record to 10-8 on the season. On the surface it does not sound that great, but considering the fact we started 1-7 it is pretty impressive. It means we have gone a combined 9-1 vs the Mariners and A’s in our last 10 divisional games.

For perspective at this time last year we were 5-7 in divisional games. But it gets tougher in the next two plus weeks. Alot tougher.

This is why I say it is both an exciting and precarious time. While it is great to actually look at the MLB scoreboard on a daily basis and know most of these AL games are meaningful for us in one way or another, (scoreboard watching and rooting against divisional foes in a tight race is one of the great joys of being a baseball fan ) as Angels fans we know all to well that the next gigantic Buttercup is waiting for us right around the corner.

It is TrAdition.

Think back to Shohei’s final season here in 2023. We went into August a healthy 5 games over .500 with a reinforced bullpen and playoff dreams in our collective heads. Then the Buttercup came. It was in the form of a devastating 4 game sweep at home no less and at the hands of the hated Mariners.

It started on Thursday August 3rd when we went to the 9th with a 3-1 lead and our reliable closer Charlie Sheen with the ball in his hand. But we had forgotten about TrAdition. Estevez surrendered a heartbreaking Grand Slam to a nobody named Marlowe. And that was the beginning of the end of our playoff dreams and perhaps retaining Ohtani longterm. The 9th inning was a hammer blow that massively moved momentum against us, and we went meekly away losing the next three games.

So, like most of you I am sure, I am enjoying the current stretch with a mixture of happy surprise and trepidation.

The suddenly resurgent Orioles are on deck and they have been blistering the ball lately, scoring an average of just over 5 runs per game in their last five games. We then face off against a powerhouse Yankees squad which just swept us at the Big A. But this time we are in New York. Seeing the Angels go 2-5 or even 1-6 in this seven game road trip is not out of the realm of possibility, especially if the Orioles managed to sweep us. Things like that happen, especially on the back of tough losses, like say if Kenley blows his first save by given up a three run jack to Rutschman or Holliday on Friday night.

We THEN come home to face a really tough Houston team with dominant pitching. We can see that they are taking that matchup seriously because they totally revamped their rotation in order to get their best starter Hunter Brown going against us in the very important first game (sets the tone for the whole series). Originally they had probably their weakest starter McCullers set to face off against Kikuchi, but no more.

Just like the Rangers did to us in mid April they pushed their top starter in the slot of the opening game of the series. In the case of Texas it was Mahle who shut us down and set the ball rolling downhill for us into being swept.

It is these kinds of strategic moves that OTHER teams make that we don’t that usually separate them from us. We may even have more talent, but the strategic part and the details are where we get beat… So what is our next move Perry ? What is your next move Wash ??

Just around the corner the Astros have Hunter Brown (1.82 ERA ) and then Brandon Walter ( 1.64 ERA ) waiting for you in the first two games, hoping to grab the all important momentum in that huge series, and perhaps even sweep us like the hated Mariners did in August of 2023.