LA Angels Series Preview: Starters Need Lengthy Outings vs. Rangers

Comeback Player of the Week

I know Comeback Player of the Week isn’t an actual award, but with how Matt Harvey has been throwing in his last two starts we need to see a bounce-back so hard that his performance makes him the de-facto winner of a non-existent award.

Of course that won’t happen, I really just want to see Harvey with a bounce-back so astronomically fierce that I refer to Harvey as the Comeback Player of the Week. What kind of start would he have to put up for that to happen? A 7 IP quality start? A CG shutout? A no-hitter?

A perfect game!?!

The realistic expectations here would be just 5 innings of quality baseball given his less-than-quality outing against the Rangers which saw him give up EIGHT runs in 4 IP just two starts ago. I would take 4 IP of just 2 runs allowed after how badly that start went.

Of course, the relief pitching is in need of some serious relief itself, even if the Angels don’t end up with a win in this second game they can still capture a moral victory by having Harvey pitch deep into the game and save some arms for tomorrow.

With Mike Minor on the other side of the mound this may not be as winnable a game as the other two in this series. Minor has been on fire with 12 strikeouts in his last 14 innings of 1.29 ERA baseball. On top of that he’s killed the Angels in their most recent visits; two 2018 starts against the Angels saw him stifle the team to a .214 batting average while the Rangers won both starts.

The Angels will have to change their destiny by finding some way, any way to knock Minor around for runs. I want to say they don’t have to obliterate him, but with Harvey on the mound opposite Minor they may want to bring all the runs they have stored up for the rest of the week into this outing

If I had to make one solid prediction for this Matt Harvey start I would guess that Harvey, after two poor starts in a row, comes out big time with a game to remember.  It has been a while since an Angel tossed a no-hitter after all.