Tonight, the Angels caught the A’s for first place in the AL West standings. The pessimist in me thinks that it should be obvious now that the Angels have fixed their problems and are just going to zoom past the A’s, Rangers (half a game out), and Mariners (three games out) and run away and hide with the division.
However, for the optimist in me, there’s this:
Angels' series opponents, since June 1 Cleveland Tampa Bay Seattle Kansas City San Diego San Francisco Arizona Colorado LA Dodgers Seattle Oakland Tampa Bay Cleveland Kansas City Tampa Bay
The highest current winning percentage amongst any of those teams is the Padres, at .520. The Angels haven’t faced a good baseball team in almost two months.
Meanwhile, the A’s have gone up against the Twins, Yankees, Detroit (twice) and Boston (twice).
So maybe the Angels aren’t quite as good as they seem right now, and the A’s aren’t quite as bad. The schedule has been kind to the Angels so far, but it will strike back later. The Angels have the most difficult remaining schedule of all four AL West teams:
Team Remaining Opponent Win % Athletics .501 Rangers .505 Mariners .511 Angels .528
If you take out the intradivision AL West games, the table looks like this:
Team Remaining Opponent Win % (non AL West teams) Athletics .499 Rangers .506 Mariners .510 Angels .548
Even if the Angels are the best team in the division, they have the toughest road ahead to win it. Still, there are so many intradivision games remaining (at least 28 for each team), the division will probably be decided by who can knock the other teams out in their head-to-head matchups.
This division is still a wide open sea of unpredictable mediocrity. I can’t say I’ll be watching events unfold with much enthusiasm. It’ll probably be more like watching four boats with large holes in their hulls slowly take on water. You’re horrified by the disaster, but you have to keep watching, just to see which one sinks last.
1. It'll probably be more like watching four boats with large holes in their hulls slowly take on water.
Woah. You're not much of an optimist are you?
2. I'm optimistic the A's can with the division. I'm just not very optimistic about the aesthetic value of the AL West pennant race. The A's totally suck right now, and they're in first place. It ain't a thing of beauty.
3. The Angles have not fixed their problems. In fact, w/ the season ending illness of Kotchman, not to mention McPherson, they are in worse shape then ever. Also, the Angel fans, like me, are no longer satisfied w/ winning the West. As for the competition, the Angel approach has long been, the competition is not relevant: if the Angels play their game, they will win, if they don't, they won't. If the Angels were a machine, you might say it had to many moving parts to be reliable. Where as other teams like to have a great starting line up, very good starting pitching, and a closer plus some middle relief, the Stoneman/Scioscia Angels use a 30+ man roster, w/ effective call-ups an key part of the 162 game season, a solid 5 man relief staff, players w/ the ability to play multiple positions and run the base paths aggressively, situational hitting, tight defense (infield and outfield), savvy catchers w/ good percentage of throwing out runners, occasional high impact free agents. In other words, for the Angels to win, every thing has to go right, as it did in 2002. Bad defense, only three reliable relief pitchers, an aging Anderson and a sick Kotchman (2nd and 3rd best hitters on the team), and you have crippled ship. Some of us think the loss of Joe Madden was huge and is reflected in the defense.
jf
4. All four AL West teams lost on Tuesday. The scrum continues...