LA Angels Series Preview: The cycle continues vs the Tigers

The LA Angels have been cycling through climbing close to the wild-card and losing ground over and over again all season. They have not been able to break the cycle and it’s frustrated many, especially after it seemed the cycle may be broken with a four-game home stand versus the Orioles.

After losing 3 of 4 at home to the Orioles the LA Angels are back to struggling to win games and make a jump in the wild-card standings. They may not be able to break this continuing cycle, but with a good series they may be able to gain a game or two in the wild-card standings.

The Angels are only 5 games back from the wild-card, so things haven’t changed that much since they bombed against the Orioles this weekend. The Angels only lost one game in the standings which isn’t that worst deal, but it is also pretty bad that they couldn’t pick up a single game against the worst team in baseball. Things looked pretty bad all around, the starting pitching could not carry the Angels through any games, the overworked bullpen blew inning after inning and the offense struggled in high leverage situations throughout the series.

It doesn’t seem to make much sense that the Angels will go toe-to-toe with the Dodgers, one of the best teams in baseball, and then take 16 innings to lose to the worst team in baseball the very next day. It is a bit sad that the Angels are thankful to see the Orioles leave after this ugly weekend, but as it is in baseball it’s time to turn the page and look at the series ahead.

The Tigers are just as bad as the Orioles and it seems the Angels have one more God-given chance to add a game or two in the Wild Card standings by mid-week. The Angels aren’t in the worst position to finish off July/start August, but all it takes is a few games to get the Angels back into fighting form.

Plus, if they trade for a starting pitcher (or two??) the outlook for the Angels wild-card chances improve, even if it isn’t as drastic as we would like there is still opportunity for the Angels to upgrade the squad and continue competing until the last day of the season.

Angels vs Tigers

(7/29) 7:07 PM PT @ YouTube: Jordan Zimmerman (0-8, 7.57 ERA) vs Jaime Barria (4-3, 6.63 ERA)

(7/30) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Drew VerHagen (1-1, 14.40 ERA) vs Griffin Canning (3-6, 5.15 ERA)

(7/31) 1:07 PM PT @  FS-W: Daniel Norris (2-8, 4.49 ERA) vs Jose Suarez (2-1, 5.35 ERA )

Ugly is as Ugly does

The starter ERAs in this series are an absolute nightmare. Given that fact this will likely be a series of pitchers duels; complete game shutouts and 2-hitters will litter the series as pitchers on both sides of the field will be throwing like aces with nothing to lose. We saw suffering Orioles pitchers twirling quality starts against the Angels and after building up all this negative momentum it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Tigers starters taking advantage of the struggling Angels. Will we see the Angels take advantage of the Tigers struggling starters or is this going to another story of “should’ve, could’ve, would’ve”

The Angels rookie starter Griffin Canning, after showing great promise in his first few starts with the squad, has been struggling through his last few starts and is looking like he still needs a tinge of development to truly belong in the MLB. His talent and competitiveness is undeniable, but the Angels at some point may need to think about sending him to Triple-A for a short while so he can rebuild his confidence and get his MLB legs in order. The only real reason Canning came up with the Angels as soon as he did was due to needs for depth; I don’t want to imply that he didn’t deserve the callup, but if this team had a healthy staff he wouldn’t be pitching any longer than a couple of starts.

Unfortunately since the Angels are starved for pitching depth they’re being forced to send out kids who aren’t 100% ready and the holes in the game of kids like Canning or Suarez have become impossible to ignore. Speaking of Suarez, he really shouldn’t be up in the Majors as it’s become clear he is not ready to pitch in the Majors. His pitch effectiveness leaves so much to be desired, his aggressiveness in attacking the zone is just not there and he is constantly putting the bullpen in awful positions by forcing them into games by the 4th or 5th innings.

As much as the Angels need the depth Jose Suarez is not helping the team in any way except for eating innings and giving up games. Suarez needs far more development time than Griffin Canning does, but at the end of the day they are both just a little bit in over their heads and the Angels have their hands tied because they can’t afford to lose depth, but they also can’t afford to tank these two prospects confidence and risk hurting the process of development.

A classic, unavoidable lose-lose scenario for the Angels.

The Wild Card isn’t going anywhere

This message is for all the Angel fans tearing their heads off and screaming at the top of their heads for a scapegoat to blame for the situation we are in. The wild-card is not going anywhere, especially if the Angels are able to sweep the series against the Tigers. The future difficulties in the Angels schedule may be a blessing as we’ve seen this team perform above their heads against elite teams. At this point if the Angels are going to play like Little Leaguers against awful teams and then show up looking like a post-season team against elite squads then it’s probably better for the team to have the rest of their schedule be as difficult as it is.

The Angels will be playing the A’s, Red Sox, and Yankees a few times which gives them even better opportunities to jump in the wild-card as those are the teams directly ahead of the Angels. That is as in control of ones destiny as a team can get, much better than trying to pad their record against teams that have no direct bearing on the Angels wild-card standings. Scoreboard watching is one of the most irritating things in sports and Angel fans are forced to scoreboard watch by the end of the first month year after year after year. That hasn’t changed a single bit this season, but if the Angels are going to have a two month schedule loaded with teams also competing for the wild-card they will have complete agency over their wild-card destiny.

This difficult schedule ahead is a blessing in disguise for the Angels, if they want to be a playoff team they’re going to have to go head to head against other playoff teams to earn the wild-card that they’ve been chasing since the first month of the season. It’s hard to imagine the starting pitching holding up over any sustained length of time, but if there is a team that is going to buck the obvious it would be the Angels. When we expect them to lose they win big, and when the wins look too good to miss the Angels find a way to miss them.

Maybe now with the Angels schedule looking all but winnable it would be the most Angels thing to subvert the obvious expectations and win.