Hey, baseball is pretty lame when the Angels are losing! Just three days ago I was so optimistic about the Angels’ chances, and now after one weekend I think the Halos are one of the worst teams in the American League. April baseball is a fickle thing.
So anyway, yeah, sorry about jinxing the Angels in Minneapolis. Here’s the money quote from my Twins series preview: “This weekend the Angels head to Minnesota, a mighty fine place to build on a four-game win streak right now.” Woof. The Halo bullpen blew a late lead in two games and lost all three; their collective 3.92 ERA is the fifth worst in the AL. Joe Smith, in particular, has seen better days. Consistently the Angels’ best reliever since his arrival before the 2014 season, Smith currently owns a 5.14 ERA.
This week the White Sox and their red-hot pitching welcome the Angels to Chicago. The White Sox rotation is sporting an AL-best 2.81 ERA and a park-adjusted FIP that is 17% better than the second-best unit. This is exactly the type of thing a struggling Angels lineup doesn’t need right now. A split will be difficult to come by, but it would ring in some renewed optimism after the lost weekend in the Twin Cities.
Game 1: Hector Santiago vs. Carlos Rodon
Santiago has impressed in both his starts, working efficiently and deeper into games than we’ve previously seen in his Angel tenure. It’s hard to take too much stock into anything after two starts, but the Angels have to be thrilled Santiago is averaging 6.83 innings per start compared to just 5.53 innings last season. Given the shaky state of the Halos’ bullpen right now, they need all the innings they can get from their starters.
Rodon was a trendy breakout pick this season. If the big lefty’s rookie season didn’t coincide with a historically great rookie class last season he probably would have garnered more attention, but the third overall pick from 2014 still threw 139-1/3 innings of 3.75 ERA ball and struck out 22.9% of batters. The walks were and still are an issue (career 11.6% walk rate), but Rodon has allowed just two runs in 13 innings this year. And he absolutely shoved in both his starts against the Angels last season, striking out 16 batters in 15 innings while allowing only two runs and 12 base runners.
Game 2: Matt Shoemaker vs. Mat Latos
Another relatively favorable matchup for Matt Shoemaker, as the White Sox’ .104 isolated power is the fourth worst in baseball. (The Angels are second worst, by the way.) The A’s, the team Shoemaker just shut down, have posted a .123 ISO. The calculus for Shoemaker is pretty simple: He succeeds if he avoids the homer. However, that won’t necessarily be true is Shoemaker continues to walk batters at a 14.3% clip. The Cobbler has already walked six batters this season—in his excellent 2014 season, he walked 24 all year.
Don Cooper’s legend as a pitching coach extraordinaire on the South Side is already well established, but Mat Latos could be his masterpiece. Latos signed a one year, $3 million deal with Chicago just a week before Spring Training—even on a free agent market where teams were tripping over themselves to pay starting pitchers, nobody would touch Latos. Yet in 12 innings, Latos owns a 0.75 ERA. He’ll have to answer for his career low strikeout rate and .114 BABIP at some point. Unless Cooper has enough magic beans on hand to last the season.
Game 3: Garrett Richards vs. Chris Sale
A fine start for Richards in Minnesota on Friday, but still disappointing. He didn’t slam the door on a struggling offense and he lasted only six innings, handing the ball to a bad bullpen too early. The strikeout, walk, and groundball rates all look outstanding, but Richards is allowing hard contact on an alarming 44.9% of balls in play. Richards became a fringe Cy Young candidate in 2014 because he limited batters to hard contact only 20.2% of the time. If Richards doesn’t induce more soft contact, it won’t matter how nice his strikeout-to-walk ratio looks.
Richards’ performance on Wednesday might not matter anyway, because Sale is arguably the best pitcher in the American League and he’s probably going to shut down the Angels. I say that even though Sale was involved in my favorite moment of Mike Trout‘s career, a game-tying, eighth inning grand slam on a filthy Sale change-up that Trout had no business depositing in the center field rocks.
Game 4: Jered Weaver vs. John Danks
Weaver’s Saturday start in Minnesota is unfortunately a more accurate depiction of 2016 Jered Weaver than his home start against Texas. The Twins pounded Weaver for eight hits in 4-1/3 innings, rendering the four-run second inning from the offense moot. Per Brooks Baseball, Weaver’s 82.31 MPH average fastball velocity this season is two points lower than last year’s when it was already perilously low. If Weaver makes regular starts, performances like his outing against the Twins are going to become the norm, not aberrations. For as poor as Weaver was last season, the 19% line drive rate was still slightly below his career average. That rate has jumped to 28.9% in his two 2016 starts. It’s a very small sample size, but it doesn’t look like things are going to get better for Weaver. When Andrew Heaney or Tyler Skaggs are ready to return, the smart money is on them replacing Weaver before anybody else.
Danks is in the last of a five year, $65 million deal in which he’s never had an ERA better than 4.71. Even Don Cooper isn’t perfect. If you want to watch a slug fest, this is your best bet.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
