LA Angels Series Preview: Nowhere to go but up vs Rangers

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Have the LA Angels ever looked as far out of their league as they did against the Twins? Sure the Twins are one of the best teams in baseball, if not the best, but they flat out whipped the Angels..

But that’s okay, because there is nowhere to go but up from here against division rival Rangers! I think…. The LA Angels are constantly finding new ways to hit rock bottom and I have to wonder if this is only the start of another plummet instead of the starting point of a fresh series and a new outlook.

This Angels team is one that finds extreme difficulty in shedding their failures, instead it seems as if the team is forever drowning under them. The Angels have to worst starting pitching in all of baseball thanks to the immaculate work of Matt Harvey and Trevor Cahill. There isn’t much to look forward to with this team except for the playing time of our up and coming prospects.

It’s no surprise that the best players on this team, aside from Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, are the young up and comers. Luis Rengifo is proving to be a steady fill in for the injured Andrelton Simmons, Jared Walsh is proving he knows his way around a bat, Griffin Canning has already established himself as the Angels top dog in the rotation. The only way the Angels can rise from this rubble is by allowing the young kids to pull them out of it.

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There is still a plethora of talent on the way to the Angels; pitchers Jose Suarez and Patrick Sandoval, hitters Matt Thaiss and Jose Rojas, there really is no end to the young talent close to ready for MLB time.

So what do the Angels do now? Do they continue to push the same formula that has brought them to this point?

Do they flip the team over to the kids and let them play out the season over the struggling veterans? If it’s the future of the team on the line the Angels are going to want to have as many kids as possible playing through this season to prepare them for the real playoff run in 2020.

It’s a long season, but with a little help from the youth it will be far more palatable than has been in the last two months.

Angels vs Rangers

(5/24) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Griffin Canning (2-1, 3.80 ERA) vs Drew Smyly (0-3, 6.51 ERA)

(5/25) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Tyler Skaggs (4-4, 5.01 ERA) vs Mike Minor (5-3, 2.64 ERA)

(5/26) 1:07 PM PT @ FS-W: TBD vs Ariel Jurado (1-2, 2.08 ERA)

Leave the past in the past

It’s time to leave the past in the past and let the future reign supreme. How can the Angels accomplish this? Easy, they’ve already started! Just like they dumped Justin Bour earlier this month the Angels will continue to need to cut the fat out of their roster. It’s easier said than done because you can’t get rid of failing players without suitable backups, but I can promise you those backups are closer than anyone can expect.

Canning isn’t going to be the last MLB ready prospect to surprise the Angels organization and fans alike. The Angels have Jose Suarez itching for his turn at cracking the starting rotation; in his 19.1 IP with Triple A he’s amassed a 1.89 ERA in what is looking like a breakout season for the young stud.

LA Times Angels beat writer Maria Torres has been impressed with Canning.

Shohei Ohtani had high praise for #Angels rookie starter Griffin Canning, who nearly matched one of Ohtani’s records in this 6-3 win over the Royals.https://t.co/RrvK2zTDjl
— Maria Torres (@maria_torres3) May 19, 2019

It’s going to take a lot of patience from Angel fans and the organization alike, but this team that the Angels are fielding really is not the true Angels squad. This is simply a transitional year; everything that’s happening now is a holdover until 2020. I’m not justifying the questionable decisions in staffing the starting rotation, I’m only pointing out the fact that a lot of the work put into the team prior to the 2019 season was simply to hold the team over until 2020.

2020 is when the prospects will be running the team, it won’t be like this year where we’re watching them get their feet wet and become acclimated to the big league life. 2020 will be the year these prospects truly shine as MLB’ers of their own. Jared Walsh will be smacking HR’s left and right, Luis Rengifo will solidify his role as one of the best leadoff men in baseball, Matt Thaiss will be peppering the walls with his line-shot ability. There is really nowhere to go but up from here, and on that note the limits of what the Angels can achieve on the strength of their youth is almost limitless.

We just have to get through these next few months, once that happens we’ll be able to really sit back and enjoy the team that is supposed to be, not the team that is.

Fishing for wins

Mike Trout is going to be a key player in this series just like he was in the first series against the Rangers back in April. He’s been bouncing back from his “slump” pretty decently as of late, within the last week he’s hit .289/.461/.579 with 2 HR’s. What’s crazy is how those numbers are still off from what Trout is typically producing.

This series against the Rangers is the perfect time for Trout to truly explode into form. This is a series the Angels are very capable of winning, but they’re going to have to rely on Trout as well as the starting pitching. Trout can’t do much to bring in wins if the starting pitching is serving up runs like hotcakes. At the same time Trout can also act as an equalizer for the Angels awful starting pitching.

Tyler Skaggs gave up 5 runs in his start? It’s no biggie when Trout clubs an early 3-run HR and gives the rest of the team the opportunity to make up for that deficit. Luckily for Trout he isn’t the only producer on this team. Tommy La Stella is having a ridiculous season and has been one of the best contributors on a rail thin team. There is still a lot left to be desired with this team, especially with the young core of talent coming into themselves. Will they be able to click with the Rangers coming into town?

That’s the thing with this Angels team, they’re constantly shifting between hot and cold at a moments notice. There are no streaks to be had here, at least hot streaks that is. The Angels are constantly getting stuck in cold stretches and when they do eventually heat up it’s only for a flicker of a moment. Like a match blown out by the furious winds of baseball.

The Angels are going to need to lean on Trout a lot this season, but especially in this upcoming Rangers series. Believe it or not the Angels are still in a position to compete aside from the horrendous starting pitching. The team is only 4.5 games back in the AL Wild Card, and yeah it does suck having to scoreboard watch for the wild-card this early in the season, but that’s just the reality of the situation.

The Rangers are currently 3rd in wild-card standings, if the Angels can pull off a sweep here they’ll be primed to end the month sniffing the wild-card.

George Michael – Faith

Go ahead and listen to that song, crank it up and let your body soak in its meaningful vibrations. Allow the music to penetrate your brain and seep into your soul. If there’s one thing Angel fans need to have with this team it’s faith. The funny thing is, if you look hard enough, it isn’t difficult to amass faith with this team. The team has been slowly improving over the course of the season and while it is frustrating to see them constantly fail to jump above .500 the fact is that this roster is becoming more and more talented as the season goes on.

The lineup was pretty horrendous coming into the season, but after shedding Justin Bour and allowing younger players to play over Zack Cozart we’ve seen actual talent begin to shine in this roster. The Angels hitting is a far cry from where it was to start the season, the whole first two weeks was an absolute embarrassment until the Rangers came into Anaheim and the Angels shifted gears overnight. This team we have now is far more talented than what the Angels fielded in that initial series against the Rangers.

The big issue here is the lack of improvement in starting pitching. Yes we can blame Angels GM Billy Eppler for not signing pitchers smartly, instead they threw 20 million at one average pitcher (Cahill) and one who has proved his lack of effectiveness over the years (Harvey). What’s done is done, instead of griping over the failures of these free agent signings we need to look to the cure for what ails this starting staff.

That cure is youth. We’ve seen it in action with the impact Griffin Canning had as soon as he came up from Triple-A. His last outing was an absolute gem that saw him pitch 7 innings of 3 hit, 5 K baseball against the Royals. With the way he’s performed since his first game up there is little doubt that he will continue to build upon his successes, unlike most Angels starters now who stumble through success and build on failure.

It’s a slow road to a fully functional starting staff, but hypothetically the Angels can have a brand new staff going into the 2019 playoffs. The young Jose Suarez is on the cusp of bringing his talents to the MLB rotation. Patrick Sandoval, the lefty bulldog, is just a couple months away from seeing MLB time. Jaime Barria is trying to get himself back in order in Triple A and find his 2018 self that pitched 129.1 IP of 3.41 ERA.

Next. Brian Goodwin has found a home here in Anaheim

The Angels are in prime position to fully overhaul their look by seasons end; a totally new lineup with a fresh-faced, young starting rotation. The only question is whether or not they’ll be in contention at that point in time. Seeing as how the Angels are still very much in contention with this dysfunctional starting rotation I don’t see what would keep them from being competitive when they get younger and far more talented.

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