LA Angels Series Preview: Getting Dirty with the White Sox

The LA Angels were lucky enough to pull a win in the last game against the Pirates after dropping the first two in embarrassing, but standard Angels fashion. Pitching woes led the team to drop the first two games, the second being a heartbreaker.

That game saw the LA Angels drop yet another nice lead later in the game thanks to erratic pitching. The team will look to move past their recent woes with a four game series featuring the White Sox

The season gets harder and harder to watch, and the fans get angrier and angrier, but at what point does it become useless to be upset with this team? It’s a huge disappointment that they could not compete this year after what seemed to be a promising team coming into the 2019 season, but at this point it’s really time to move on from hoping to see the team win. Even at the All-Star break this still looked like a team that could pull through and finish the second half of the season strong enough to place them in wild card contention, but that didn’t happen. In fact it blew up in all of our faces and left us shell-shocked for a short period of time.

At this point it’s very clear the team is not going to be winning and no amount of screaming for people to be fired or trying to find someone to be upset about will change that. All we can do is wait until this upcoming off-season to see if the Angels brass will have the brass to spend the money needed to become a real competitor. Until then all we can do is watch baseball for the pure love of the sport and to see the young prospects developing into something that can contribute in big ways come 2020.

At this point if you’re watching just to be upset with the team you’re only hurting yourself. With how this pitching has been handling itself over the course of the season, and especially this second half, hoping for a win and getting bent out of shape when it predictably does not go the Angels way. Like the great philosopher Epictetus once said, “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take them”. If you’re watching the Angels team with hopes that they’ll win you’re only disturbing yourself when they don’t. If you watch the Angels game prepared and accepting of a pitching dumpster fire then you will be free of any anger or irritation when comes the trouble.

That being said, the Angels do have a nice series ahead against the White Sox where they can potentially secure at least a couple of wins. Heading into the series, however, I would fully expect a lot of the same, so if you have any expectations I would advise you to temper them now.

White Sox @ Angels 

(8/15) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Reynaldo Lopez (7-9, 5.16 ERA) vs Andrew Heaney (1-3, 4.89 ERA)

(8/16) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: Lucas Giolito (12-6, 3.42 ERA) vs Patrick Sandoval (0-0, 5.59 ERA)

(8/17) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: TBD vs. Jose Suarez (2-4, 6.57 ERA)

(8/18) 7:07 PM PT @ FS-W: TBD vs Griffin Canning (4-6, 4.86 ERA)

The Youth Brigade

The Angels youth starters are going to be featured heavily in this series once more with Suarez, Sandoval, and Canning taking the mound in the series with Andrew Heaney leading the charge. Just a year ago Heaney was a staff leader with his 4.15 ERA in 180 IP, yet this season has seen him struggle with inconsistency more than ever before. He hasn’t been healthy enough to pitch a steady stream of innings in 2019 (49.2 IP) with much success (4.89 ERA), though it should be noted that his strikeout rate jumped a full point and a half from 2018 to 2019 (10.5 K/9 in 2019). He’s only 28 years of age, so this doesn’t seem to be a point of regression, it simply seems to be that Heaney is suffering through a rough season as is most other Angels starters.

Heaney has showed great success in the past, but as of now he’s struggling to offer consistency in his role. His last outing against the Red Sox saw him throw 72 pitches in just 3.2 IP, though he did strike out 4 and allow just one run. That isn’t the point however, the point is that there was once again no help offered to the bullpen as they were forced to pitch through 6.1 innings in Heaneys start, though the team did come away with a victory in that outing.

Patrick Sandoval has shown off prime stuff in his time in the bigs, though his start against the Red Sox wasn’t as sharp as planned. His command got away from him, leading to four walks, so we’ll be looking to see Sandoval regain a handle on his control and pitch his way through another strong outing like he did against the Reds. On the other hand Jose Suarez has not shown any signs of improvement and just gets battered day in and day out so that is unlikely to change here. His last start saw him give up 6 runs in 3 innings of work against the Pirates, so don’t look for things to improve here. At this point the Angels are just trying to survive through the season.

With Griffin Canning taking the last day we can expect some semblance of quality although Canning has been as inconsistent as the rest of the staff. Even though he can flash ace potential his problem is switching up his approach as the game goes on and letting hitters beat him without much trouble later into games. Canning is notorious for breaking down after facing hitters the first time through the lineup, so if he’s going to be seeking improvement in this start he’s going to need to keep hitters on their toes by switching up his pitching approach as the game moves forward.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Mike Trout has been looking extremely off as of late, more off than he has in any of his other slumps throughout the season. He’s late on meaty fastball, everything he hits seems to be popped up, and his strikeouts in critical situations are becoming far too frequent to not notice. In his last 6 games he’s hit just .118 with 1 HR and 3 RBI. There seems to be something off about Trout and everyone is talking about it. Is it health? Is he exhausted from the long season? Is it the stress from such an emotionally draining season?

I don’t like to make inferences into how players are feeling too often, but it really does seem as if Trout is just mentally worn out at this point in the year. The team has no chance to compete and each game sees them battered time and time again by some of the worst teams in baseball. Trout is making errors in the outfield and dropping routine fly balls after having a long stretch of clean OF play. I wouldn’t say he’s “given up” on the team or any of that, but it does seem like he’s at the end of his rope. It’s been a very difficult year, he’s had to say goodbye to two of his closest friends as they passed away far too young (Aaron Cox and Tyler Skaggs) and on top of that he’s had another somewhat promising season blow up in his face.

If that is truly the case I can’t say that I blame him. One person can only go through so much, and while Trout is accustomed to carrying his team on his back he’s never had to do so under the emotional pressure he is under now. Any normal man would become half-broken by the things Trout has gone through this season, and it’s a credit to his leadership and determination that he is grinding out this season. But at this point it would be best for the teams season to end as soon as possible and let the guy get some rest. I know that isn’t the most productive or appealing take to have, but the Angels are struggling to survive and regardless of playoffs or not there is a very real light at the end of the tunnel.

That light being the Angels finally being able to move past this season and all the emotional struggles that have come with 2019. Mike Trout still has the MVP to play for, which is very much worth playing for, but at this point the dude just needs a break. Not just from baseball, but from life for a little bit. It’s been a heavy 2019 and our Angels need nothing more than to decompress and move forward emotionally.