LA Angels Series Preview: Finding fresh air in Cleveland

This recent home stand is one the LA Angels cannot put behind themselves fast enough. After looking like the season was just getting started after a sweep of the Dodgers we thought the Angels would catch fire versus the two worst teams in baseball.

Unfortunately the LA Angels reverted to their old ways of disappointment and dropped 5 of 7, effectively eliminated themselves from making a substantial move at the trade deadline which all but ended the season. Now the Angels are heading to Cleveland with hopes of erasing this past week from their minds.

Just as the Angels have seemingly dropped out of the wild-card race it would only seem appropriate for them to go back to doing what they do best and get our hopes up once again. The Angels are going to be playing the Indians who are hot on their own playoff hunt themselves, so it only makes perfect sense that the Angels will finally wake back up now that things are as serious as they can get.

It seems like they have no legs in the wild-card race, but just wait for the Angels to sweep the Indians and pull themselves back to 4 games within the wild-card and get everyone’s hopes up once more. The only thing that’s more “Angels” than losing almost every game in what looked like a for sure home-stand is the team handling a playoff contender and pulling themselves back in the wild card race just so they can play themselves out a week later.

That being said, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that the Angels can spend the month of August trimming away at the 6 game deficit they’re facing in the wild-card standings. Unfortunately with this starting staff standing in the way of any chances of success it is highly unlikely that they make any major push to secure a wild card spot. They may make little jolts up the standings here and there, but it won’t be anything substantial enough to catapult them into an actual playoff spot.

Of course that can all change with one series, but seeing as how the Angels just saw their entire season change because of two back to back awful series I’m not so confident that these next two series will re-flip the script that’s flipped a thousand times already and put them back in contention.

Go Angels!

Angels @ Cleveland

(8/2) 4:10 PM PT @ FS-W: TBD vs Mike Clevinger (5-2, 3.28 ERA)

(8/3) 4:10 PM PT @ FS-W: TBD vs TBD

(8/4) 10:10 PM PT @ FS-W: TBD vs TBD