Seven Ways to Snap the Slump

The Angels picked an awfully bad time to drop 9 of 14 games.  Earlier in the season, Angel fans might have been content to sit back and wait out this little rough patch, but with a month left in the season, I think we might need to resort to some more extreme measures and it just so happens I have some ideas towards that end:

1. Start injuring players. Apparently now that the Angels are fully healthy, they can’t win anymore.  It seems the more hardship they are forced to endure, the better they play.  No need to hurt anyone too seriously, just have Gary Matthews twist and ankle and give Jeff Mathis a bad hangnail or something.  That should be enough to get the team going again.
2. Set all the clocks to East Coast time. Since the Angels can’t seem to beat anyone in the AL West, they need to do something to convince themselves they are playing outside of the division.  Moving the clocks forward three hours would be much easier than convincing the Mariners to move to Hartford, Connecticut.
3. Steroids. Not for the players, of course, that would be wrong and illegal.  I mean for the Rally Monkey.  It is looking like the Angels burnt him out early in the season because their comeback efforts have all fallen short recently.  As far as I know there are no rules against a roided up mascot, so I say give it a try even though it would set a bad example for the impressionable capuchin monkey youths of America.



OK, not that much steroids, let’s not over do it.


4. Start jerking with the out of town scoreboard. It seems like whenever the Rangers lose, the Angels win and vice versa.  So just start posting on the scoreboard every night that the Rangers lost, that way the Angels are properly motivated to win.  This will probably only work for a week or so before they catch on, but it should be enough to get them back on the right track.
5. Pitch like crap again. Counter-intuitive though it might be, the Angels hit the skids at the almost exact same time that their starting pitching started getting good again.  So, let’s send Kazmir, Lackey and Santana to the bullpen and move Palmer, Bell and O’Sullivan back into the rotation.
6. Actually take the Rangers seriously. The Angels had such an easy time winning the division last year that I think they might’ve forgotten that it is feasible for their divisional foes to actually not suck.  I say just wallpaper the locker room with printouts of the standings every single day until the Angels get the message.
7. Human sacrifice. This is strictly a last resort, but the Angels finally have a great offense and stellar pitching, so letting a shot at the World Series slip away would be a crime and if human sacrifice is the only answer, then I begrudgingly endorse it and nominate Gary Matthews for the job.



Sorry, Gary, but sometimes you’ve got to take one for the team.