The Rest of the West: 6/8/9 Edition

Another week gone by and the Angels still aren’t in first place.  This does not compute.  Such a lousy division, yet the Halos are still handily trailing the Texas Rangers at four games back.  Worse yet, the rest of the division is only just behind them.  How could this possibly be?  Well, let’s find out with our weekly check in with the rest of the Angels’ AL West brethren.

TexAss Rangers

The Rangers stalled out a little bit this week going 3-3, but they did so on the road against the beasts of the East (Yankees and Red Sox).  Dammit, that’s actually kind of impressive.  I still keep waiting for the Rangers to come crashing back to earth, yet they held their own against two other contenders.  With every passing week, the Rangers are beginning to look more and more like they are for real, no matter how much I insist they are not.  They even went so far as to exercise their 2010 option on manager Ron Washington.  Curse them and their stupid vote of confidence.  Life would be so much easier if the ownership group had just let that unnecessary pressure hang over their heads.  Really, how dare they reward their manager for overachieving.  But there is good news, that is unless your name is Josh Hamilton who was recently placed on the disabled list with an abdominal injury that will cause him to miss the next four to six weeks.  Even though Hamilton wasn’t having a very good season, it still weakens the Ranger line-up, which is always a good thing since their smoke-and-mirrors rotation is bound to fall apart any day now.  Seriously, Ranger pitchers, you were supposed to implode a few weeks ago.  Don’t disappoint me again.

For a guy who just got his contract extended, he doesn’t look so happy.

Seattle SeaMen

The Mariners trail the Angels by just one game in the division and it is easy to see why; they share quite a bit in common with the Halos.  Like the Brandon Wood situation, Seattle continues to ignore their top prospect, Jeff Clement, despite the fact that he is destroying the minors and the big league club has an obvious need for his services.  Who knew that front office stupidity was contagious?  On the other hand, that stupidity didn’t hold them back last week as they went 4-2 against the Orioles and Twins.  Fortunately, Ichiro Suzuki’s lengthy hitting streak was snapped, so we won’t be forced to hear about him every night.

Your streak is over, please feel free to stop clogging up Baseball Tonight highlights with your weak ass slap hits.

Oakland AthleDicks

Don’t you people ever die?  Last week the vultures were circling Oakland’s rotting corpse looking to see what meaty bits they could pluck away to fatten their own roster at the trade deadline.  Heck, even Matt Holliday basically went to the press to declare that he is on the trading block.  Then the frakking A’s had to go and win six games in a row.  Billy Beane is too smart a guy to actually think that this team is worthy of a division title, but the team is only seven games back, which isn’t all that far back if the expected TexAss collapse begins soon.  Amazingly Oakland is thriving despite being riddled with injuries (unlike a certain other AL West club I know).  They already have Eric Chavez, Mark Ellis, Nomar Garciaparra, Travis Buck, Justin Duchscherer and Ryan Sweeney on the disabled list and now have Jack Cust and Jason Giambi battling nagging injuries.  The AthleDicks’ success did come against lowly Baltimore and the floundering White Sox, so it is likely more an aberration than anything else.  They have a ton of road games coming up, so their threat to emerge from the basement will be thwarted soon enough.

I know, I don’t know how we’re winning either.