Series Preview: Angels vs. Rangers vs. BOOOOOOO!!!!

Let’s just get this out of the way. Josh Hamilton is returning to Anaheim for the first time. It is going to be a big deal even if Hamilton continues to pretend that he has never thought about the Angels since the moment he was traded. He may have had the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind treatment done on him, but the Angels, their fans and most definitely their owner haven’t.

Josh Hamilton is going to get booed. It is just a question of how long and how loud he will be booed. The Angels definitely did him wrong in the way they ran him out of town, but there are plenty of fans who won’t forgive him for his relapse and probably even more that won’t forgive him for his snide remarks at his press conference in Texas after the trade. Whatever reception he gets, he deserves it, sort of.

My only real hope for this series is that boos are all Hamilton gets. I don’t want him to succeed. Judging by the 93 wRC+ he enters the series with, I’m not too worried. I also hope he doesn’t get anything more than boos. While it might make some of us feel good to spew bile at Hamilton, I’d hope we can all be a bit classier than that. We don’t need Angels fans resorting to calling him a crackhead or wishing him “happy snorting.” We weren’t all better than that when the drama first went down, but we can all be better than that now and maybe put this whole ugly saga behind us once and for all.

Game 1: Nick Tropeano vs. Colby Lewis
Neither starter has been officially announced but it is fully expected that Tropeano will be getting the showcase for a trade- errr, I mean the spot start. Yep, that’s it nothing to see here. Just a guy helping out for a day. No ulterior motive whatsoever.

The Rangers oddly haven’t tapped Lewis for the start either (at least according to MLB.com as I write this). It is his turn to start and he pitched well last time out, so unless there is an injury I can’t think of why he wouldn’t be named yet. Oh, no, never mind, I can totally think of a reason. It might just have to do with the fact that the Angels annihilated him earlier this month and clobbered him several other times in the last two seasons. That seems like a pretty good reason.

Game 2: Hector Santiago vs. Yovani Gallardo
Yovani Gallardo has been announced as the starter for this game, but there is a non-zero chance that he will get traded before the game as a few teams have been sniffing around him. With Kazmir getting dealt, the trade market is now open, so a Gallardo deal is certainly possible. However, Gallardo is more of a consolation prize, so he probably will make this start and even his next one and get dealt right before the deadline after all the teams that whiffed on Hamels and Cueto start scrambling for whatever arm they can get their grubby little hands on.

Game 3: Andrew Heaney vs. Nick Martinez
Will this finally be the game that Scioscia let’s Heaney go over the 100-pitch mark? If it is, will it be because Heaney is pitching so well or because Scioscia is trying to get him through five innings? For whatever reason, Sosh seems far less inclined to let his pitchers break the century mark when they are dominating, at least of late. I understand it with Heaney since he’s a young arm that you want to protect whenever you can, but the sub-100 pitch games thing is becoming its own storyline with Andrew now.