Series Preview: Angels vs. Rays vs. What could have been

VS.

MATCH-UP MOTTOS

TUESDAY, 8/27: C.J. Wilson vs. Roberto Hernandez: WE CAN HAZ ALL DA WINZ?

I got a hate-chuckle out of this tweet from the Angels PR Twitter account yesterday. Yay! C.J. Wilson has wins across a date range with arbitrary end points! That makes up for everything, right? Forget about the fact that the Angels don't have many wins and that pitching wins are a garbage statistic, let's just wash C.J.'s balls instead. All is well in Anaheim! PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

WEDNESDAY, 8/28: Garrett Richards vs. Chris Archer: That's a good joke.

One of my pet peeves are fan trade ideas that completely fail to take into account the needs and leanings of the other team. One that I saw quite a bit in the last year is the Halos swapping Trumbo for Chris Archer. Archer was one of the best pitching prospects in baseball and has been pretty great since getting called up. Trumbo can barely keep his OBP above .300 and would be going to a very saber-friendly team. That kind of trade idea makes me laugh.

THURSDAY, 8/29: Jason Vargas vs. David Price: I'm just going to pencil this is an "L"

Vargas has been shaky since returning and the Angels can't hit lefties for some reason. Price is arguably the best lefty in baseball, so this game is pretty well set-up for the Halos to just have it shoved up their backside.

MISERY INDEX

The index reading for this series is: Friedman

Remember when Arte Moreno put the full court press on Rays executive/genius Andrew Friedman to come to Anaheim to take over as GM? Yeah, those were good times. You can bet that there is no chance that we'd be having this great Scioscia-Dipoto holy war if it was Friedman that took the job instead of Dipoto. I'm sure that won't be haunting my thoughts all off-season long.

GOOD NEWS

The Angels are staying in a hotel that is supposedly haunted. While the baseball may not be interesting, we should at least get a few good stories out of their stay at The Vinoy.

BAD NEWS

With Scioscia on the wobbly chair, someone will undoubtedly suggest that the Angels fire Scioscia and just hire Joe Maddon away from the Rays. That would be great and all, but it also isn't happening. Maddon loves the Rays and is signed through 2015 and probably wouldn't disrespect Scioscia by taking his job. Don't make that suggestion. Don't be that guy.

AMBIVALENT NEWS

Somehow the Angels didn't play the Rays all season long and now they play them seven times in the next ten days and then that is it. You have to love the MLB schedulers.

CLOSING STATEMENT

I kind of don't care what happens in this series. The "spoiler" role doesn't interest me, but I do kind of like the idea of giving the Rays a boost. They are a good organization and, more importantly, not the Red Sox or Yankees. Anything the Angels can do to help someone other than the Red Sox or Yankees make the playoffs is just fine with me.