LA Angels Series Preview: AL West Showdown in Mexico

Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde

We’ve seen Matt Harvey and Trevor Cahill pull disappearing acts over the course of the first month time and time again. By that I mean they’ll show off some serious skill in one start and then lose all sense of quality in the next start.

Who are we going to get with this series? Are we going to get the Matt Harvey that has given up just 3 runs in the last 13 innings or will we see the Harvey that cannot pitch through 5 innings without giving up nearly half a dozen runs?

Are we going to see the Trevor Cahill who can put the team in winning positions by clearing 5-6 innings of quality baseball or will we be subject to watching him bullied off the mound by the 5th inning?

The consistency of the starting rotation has made it difficult for the Angels to know exactly what to expect game in and game out. Although that is starting to slowly stabilize itself we’re still seeing a middle-bottom end of the rotation that doesn’t know whether or not they’ll provide successful starts to turn over winning momentum to the top of the rotation.

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Trevor Cahill has struggled with the long ball after a 2018 season that saw him manage success with keeping the ball in the park. 2018 saw Cahill give up just 8 home runs across 110 IP, yet in 2019 we’ve seen him already allow nine in just 30.1 innings of work.

Cahill will have his work cut out for him as he faces the best in the AL West; an Astros lineup that features Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, and George Springer will pose serious danger to Trevor Cahill if he isn’t on his A game. We’ve only seen a month of action from Cahill and from that month we have seen sparks of pure quality here and there.

The same goes for Matt Harvey, can he keep up his current hot streak against the best lineup he’s faced all season long?  This is a critical start for both Harvey and Cahill, but at the same time if Harvey can tap into his higher ceiling to bring about some wins he just might be able to lock into that “Dark Knight” for more than just one or two starts.

Children of the Grave(s)

We’ve seen so many Angels prospects come up with the team this season due to the poor quality of the veterans who were entrusted with critical roles coming into the season. We’ve seen Zack Cozart effectively replaced by Luis Rengifo who has already shown so much more than Cozart has in his two injury riddled years with the team.

We have also seen higher quality at-bats coming from the young-upstarts than we have from the veterans all through the first month of the season. Even in the case of Justin Upton, who hasn’t been bad because he hasn’t had a chance to play at all, has seen another young upstart rise through his absence and create more success than anyone could have imagined

Los Angeles Angels

The kids are starting to rise through the graves of the veterans who are/have failed to do their job either through injury or just poor play. This isn’t going to be the end of the road either; we still have Justin Bour stinking up the lineup and sooner than later he too will find a young, hungry prospect stealing his job.

Angels Top Prospects Jared Walsh and Matt Thaiss, both lefty first baseman, have both been slaying Triple A so far. Walsh is slashing .278/.377/.536 in 114 PAs while Thaiss is killing the baseball to the tune of .271/.388/.417 in 116 PA’s.

The talents they display are far and above what Justin Bour has done so far for the team. Walsh and Thaiss are gamers in every sense of the word; every at-bat, every pitch, every second of the game they are fully involved and geared up to make an impact.

That’s the kind of attitude the Angels need all over the lineup right now and they’re slowly getting there as the season moves along. If they can piece just a few more parts together, this will be a legitimate ball club to contend with.

Griffin Canning is just the first of many starters who will be fed into the MLB system over the course of the season and we’ve already seen what kind of impact he brings to the team.

Just recently another Angels Top Prospect, LHP Patrick Sandoval, was promoted to Triple A after pitching 20 innings in Double A and absolutely slaying with a K/9 of 14.4 in his short time with the team.

The Angels faulty veteran pieces may be left behind a stinking mess throughout the first month of the season, but that is all going to be a distant memory very soon.

To be the best you have to beat the best

Are the Angels finally gelling together as a team? Since the beginning of the season people have criticized this team for their lack of chemistry, especially in the batting order. Early in the first month it was easy to see why people felt so; nothing was clicking with the team, only one or two guys would be hitting at a time and other than that we’d see a flailing lineup.

But slowly the pieces came together; Kole Calhoun starting getting his boom under him, David Fletcher showed the true value of grit and hustle, Tommy La Stella began playing far over his head, even Albert Pujols has been contributing big time to the offense.

I’ve been saying since before the season started, this is a young team and it’s going to take some time for them to truly start gelling together. It’s tough to stomach this at first when you play in one of the best divisions in baseball with other young teams who have had multiple seasons to gel together and establish their chemistry.

The Angels aren’t just putting together a young lineup, they’re bringing in young coaching to lead the way. Even though the team has been coming together it still isn’t 100% there. The Angels have Shohei Ohtani and Justin Upton on the way back from injury, but that isn’t going to do anything for them in this Mexico series.

The Angels have looked so much more like an actual ball club over the last week than they have at any other point in the first month of the season. This Astros series will be a true test of how finely tuned the working parts of the club are. Will the starting pitching be able to quell the dangerous Astros lineup? Will the Angels hitters be able to tag Wade Miley and Justin Verlander with enough runs to secure a win?

There are still so many lingering questions left for this ballclub to answer, and while I don’t expect those answers to come over the course of this two game series it should become much clearer just how close to contention this team really is.

Will they get swept and be forced to return to a more realistic outlook on the state of the team? Will they battle the Astros back each and every inning and show that they’re ready to fight tooth and nail for wins? Will they sweep the Astros and show the world that this team is far more than what every pundit with an opinion to share has claimed they are?

This is going to be a critical weekend for the Angels, but with the momentum they’ve amassed over the last week the opportunities for success will be more than plentiful against the Houston Astros.