LA Angels Series Preview: Flight of the Blue Jays

Pitching wins Championships (and games)

The Angels offense has been in the best shape it’s been in all season with the team scoring at least five runs in 5 of their last 6 games. That consistency has been backed up by their pitching, for the most part, and to continue that success will require the Angels to really hunker down with their pitching and continue to offer the offense as much support as possible.

The Angels starting pitching needs to put their best foot forward in this season and ensure the offense won’t need to scratch and claw their way to a victory every game in this series. That may be asking for a lot given the appearance of Tyler Skaggs and possibly Trevor Cahill in this series, but really all the Angels need is to not have to scratch and claw for every single game, so if Jose Suarez and Andrew Heaney can provide quality starts and lead the Angels to easy wins I guess it will balance itself out.

Tyler Skaggs gave up 3 runs across 5 innings in a rather pedestrian start and at this point I don’t know whether he will improve from his mediocrity, fall backwards, or simply stay mediocre. Hopefully Upton has a handful of bombs aching to escape his bat after lying dormant for two months.  The Angels will need them to back up Skaggs and Cahill if he ends up making an appearance in this series.

The pitching may not need to be lights out in this series as the Blue Jays have been sniffing the cellar for a while, but we do need to see quality out of the starting staff if the Angels want to use this series to catapult themselves into the 2nd wild-card spot sooner rather than later.