Weekend Rewind: Ranger Danger – Angels Drop Two of Three to Texas

These Ranger guys are really starting to piss me off.  Instead of rolling over and playing dead like young, upstart clubs are supposed to, those pesky Rangers came to town and made sure the Angels knew full well that they aren’t going away anytime soon.  In other words, it was a total disaster for the Angels.

The series couldn’t have started out on a worse foot with Joe Saunders making one final horrific start before finally admitting that his shoulder hurts.  His shellacking was exactly what the Angels didn’t need in a series where they needed to send a message to their division rival, instead it was the Rangers doing the message sending.

Still though the Halos bought themselves a chance to salvage the series for themselves by winning a squeaker of game on Saturday.  They got a brilliant performance out of Jered Weaver, a clutch homer from Vladimir Guerrero and great bullpen work from Kevin Jepsen.  With their ace, John Lackey, going the next day, the Halos had set themselves up to walk away from the series with another game tacked onto their lead and the ability to write off their one loss to Saunders’s injury.  It wouldn’t be as good as a sweep, but it certainly would’ve sent some kind of message to the Rangers that the road to the division title still runs through Los Angeles (by way of Anaheim).

Unfortunately, Texas had other things in mind and administered an absolute beatdown on Sunday, toppling Lackey, taking advantage of uncharacteristically sloppy fielding from the Halos and totally shutting down a line-up that had previously seemed unstoppable.  Now the Rangers have let the Angels and the rest of the league know that they aren’t going away this year and could be poised to hang around for a long time to come.  Now the Angels have to come together, regroup and figure out a way to keep Texas at bay in spite of the fact that they can’t apparently beat them.

Good News:

• Jered Weaver is still having a little bit of an issue with the long ball, but after two straight starts of 11 strikeouts, the Angels look to have at least finally fixed one of their three struggling starters.  Weaver is peaking at the right time and could prove to be the team’s most important pitcher down the stretch.
• That home run Vladimir Guerrero hit off of Kevin Millwood was vintage Vlad which portends well for him.  If he can just demonstrate that he can catch up to a hard inside fastball, Angel fans should jump with joy.

Bad News:

• It is nice to have Jose Arredondo back, too bad he still appears to stink after giving up a home run in his first appearance back.  Dondo is the Angels best hope at giving the bullpen a shot in the arm, but he is going to have to do a lot better than he did Sunday to make Tony Reagins not regret making a trade instead.
• Jeff Mathis should really take note that the only reason he is playing is for his defense, committing a catcher’s interference and a throwing error is not what Mike Scioscia had in mind.  Everyone has bad days, but when you are hitting .205 you can’t afford many bad days in the field.

Halo Anti-Hero:

• Joe Saunders

The one thing the Angels didn’t need was to give the Rangers cause for hope, but Joe basically served it up to Texas on a silver platter with his worst start of the year (and that is saying something).  Then he had to go out and claim that he has been hurt all this time, leaving the Angels horribly short-handed in the rotation with little recourse for replacing him.