LA Angels Series Preview: AL West Showdown in Mexico

The LA Angels have been extremely up and down to start the season; this first month has seen them collect multiple winning streaks whilst off-setting their success with untimely droughts.

Despite that the LA Angels have finished the first month of the season just 3 games back from first place. If the Angels can follow-up their 3 game sweep of the Blue Jays with a two game rout of the Houston Astros they will be setting themselves up for a highly competitive May.

The Angels have been looking better and better as the season rolls on. It may be minor improvement after minor improvement, but after weeks of time we’ve seen these upgrades stack up to create a much better team than we saw at seasons beginning.

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The starting pitching is rounding itself out into a more palatable form, with a little more consistency Tyler Skaggs can provide a much-needed source of leadership in the rotation. Matt Harvey has posted two quality starts in a row and we now have the rookie phenom Griffin Canning here to bolster the energy and impact of the starting rotation.

A lot of minor moves here and there haven’t just reinforced this ball-club, they’ll set the groundwork for long-term success. Luis Rengifo, the rookie infielder, has shown a propensity for timely hitting and surprising pop while Brian Goodwin has gone from waiver wire depth option to contender for team MVP.

The best part of this all? This isn’t even the Angels final form. There is still the need to figure out what to do with Justin Bour and his ineffectual play, but with Top Prospects Jared Walsh and Matt Thaiss slamming the ball around in Triple A it’s only a matter of time until all of these issues fix themselves.

The Angels are in a very fortunate position where they have legitimate prospect depth prepared to come up to the big league club and clean the stains left behind by veterans who aren’t getting it done.

All in all the Angels first month of the season was much more successful than many have given credit for. With the position that they’re in it’s looking like the Angels can take the month of May by storm.

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.