LA Angels Series Preview: Mariners return in AL West Rematch

The LA Angels have jumped from playing Oakland to Seattle to Oakland once more and then back to Seattle in the span of a week.

While the LA Angels have looked good at many points throughout these series’ the outstanding issue is that they are still letting winnable games get away from them. Those issues mostly came against the A’s in this recent series and that goes to show how the Angels struggle when faced with higher end talent.

Now the Angels need to beat up on the Mariners to keep themselves within a fair distance from the AL Wild Card.

The Angels handled the Mariners pretty well their last time out with the M’s scoring no more than 4 runs in any of the three games in that series. The starting pitching and bullpen presented serious issues against the Oakland A’s this past series, a series in which the offense did everything they could to keep the Angels competitive. The pitching in that series didn’t work out as well as any of us had hoped and with Trevor Cahill on the bump in the final game of the series things aren’t looking any better than they did against the A’s.

Andrew Heaney is going to be making his third start of his season after striking out 18 batters over his last 11 innings of work. Last year was a bit of an up and down year for Heaney, but after everything he went through at the beginning of this season it really seems like something has changed within him. Not just in terms of overcoming his elbow injury itself, but overcoming his struggles with depression and anxiety.

Andrew Heaney is looking like a more determined man out on the mound, if we can see that same demeanor consistently throughout the season the Angels are going to be in an amazing spot to compete for the AL Wild Card. Although Heaney has had some slight long ball issues this season (4 HRs allowed in last two starts) he managed it well by minimizing the damage and leading the Angels to wins in both of those starts.

Angels vs Mariners

(6/7) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Andrew Heaney (0-0, 4.09 ERA) vs Marco Gonzalez (5-6, 4.89 ERA)

(6/8) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: TBD vs Yusei Kikuchi (3-3, 4.43 ERA)

(6/9): 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Trevor Cahill (2-6, 7.18 ERA) vs Wade LeBlanc (2-2, 5.70 ERA)