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)

Back and better than ever

There is no doubt that Andrew Heaney is a new man out on the mound. If you followed his injury story at the beginning of the season you probably read the many articles in which Andrew Heaney opened up about his emotional and mental struggles regarding his chronic elbow injury. That article was extremely heavy to read, Heaney was as lost as he could be; from waking up and hating his body for not being able to stay healthy to having thoughts of a life away from baseball. That kind of hurt is something that either helps a person grow in the best ways possible or change for the worst. It reminds me of Zack Greinke and his struggles with anxiety and depression which nearly pushed him away from game.

What happened after Greinke found help for his issues? He went on to fully embrace the depths of his talent and go on to win a Cy Young and become one of the most prolific starting pitchers in modern day baseball history. To be clear I’m not trying to state that Heaney will have a massive shift in career trajectory and win Cy Youngs, all I’m stating is that Heaney can finally grow into the pitcher he was always supposed to be as long as he has truly grown from his issues.

We as fans can’t really tell if he is still struggling with those intense issues that assaulted him at the beginning of the season, and to be honest he probably still is to some degree because struggles with anxiety and depression always find a way to linger about. Those things never really go away, you just become stronger by finding new ways to deal with them. This goes beyond baseball, everything Andrew Heaney opened up about is something the vast majority of us have dealt with to some degree. Some of us are dealing with the struggles of anxiety and depression right now and it that allows us better perspective into what others, like Heaney, struggle with on a day-to-day basis.

When those mental and emotional struggles turn into emotional turmoil it makes it nearly impossible for you to “feel yourself”, the difficulty in feeling like you are embracing the best version of yourself at every possible moment becomes astronomical. If Andrew Heaney is truly at a point where he is embracing the truest version of himself there is no limit to the success he can find on the mound. The Angels need more starters that can give them big time energy on the mound and there is no reason Heaney can’t be that guy if he can just be himself on the mound.

Regardless of any successes or failures from Andrew Heaney in the future all that matters is that he finds a way to fully embrace himself and bring peace to himself.

Falling into place

This Angels team is finally starting to get in major ways, as I said before. A lot of people are saying this team needs to sell their pieces like La Stella and load up on prospects for the next couple of seasons. I don’t even know where to start with pointing out how wrong that is. It’s like most of the Angels fan base is turning into mini Jerry Dipoto’s with this incessant need to trade everything because it’s not working at the moment. That attitude is what put the Angels in a rut the last few years, the thing that has changed this team is Billy Eppler’s iron hand and saint like patience.

This team is not the same team that it was at the beginning of the season; this Angels team is growing into itself by way of bringing young chemistry on the team and allowing those young players to fall into place. Everyone on this team has slowly begun to slide into their groove over the last two months and those players that showed an inability to do so have been put aside. Bringing on Griffin Canning and Luis Rengifo changed the chemistry of this team big time by allowing Ausmus to extend the versatility of this ball club.

People like to be upset at Ausmus and pretend that the teams hot and cold trend is his fault, but the fact is that Ausmus is doing a great job managing the Angels so far. He’s shown a greater propensity for putting a lineup together than Scioscia ever did, Ausmus is not afraid to experiment and shift until the pieces fall into their place. This teams ability to adapt is what’s going to take them farther than many people expect. Ausmus is not afraid to make changes after giving players a fair chance whereas Mike Scioscia would just say “turn the page/trust the process” and keep forcing the same lineup together.

Things are changing fast with the Angels and the changes are going to keep coming. Depending on how Jose Suarez performs in his next start, when given the opportunity, he may be able to find a permanent spot in the rotation. Luis Rengifo is slowly coming into himself and showing off why he is the most underrated player on this team. In the last week Rengifo has hit .333/.400/.556 with a home run to go with it; he has a sneaky powerful swing for someone his size, his plate discipline and pitch selection has been improving day by day and it’s getting to the point where Rengifo is starting to crush the ball. He’s been the victim of bad luck and superb defense with some of his batted balls, but for the most part he has one of the best swings on this team.

Now that I think about it the Angels lineup has a lot of really good swings in it aside from Trout and Ohtani; David Fletcher, Tommy La Stella, Luis Rengifo, Brian Goodwin, Kole Calhoun (despite his mediocre average he crushes the ball). Everything has been falling into place for the Angels piece by piece and this series against the Mariners is going to show just how strong this team is with the pieces they have now.

And there is still more to come. The future for the Angels is brighter than you may think.