LA Angels Series Preview: The cycle continues vs the Tigers

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.