Angels vs. Athletics Series Preview: Moving on

The Josh Hamilton is saga is over. That’s great news, not because Josh is gone and not because it means that maybe Angels management will finally stop making fools of themselves, but because we don’t have to talk about it anymore. The whole Hamilton story was depressing on multiple fronts but also entirely unavoidable. But now that the Angels finally cut him loose, we can cut the drama loose as well. No more hot takes. No more speculation. No more rumors. No more finger wagging. Just baseball. Please? Can we just talk about baseball now? Is that OK with you, Josh?

Like this? 😉 RT @Wx_Ben JOSH HAMILTON WINK GIF MAKE IT HAPPEN pic.twitter.com/eX2sIMwyNL

— Or Moyal (@OrMoyal) April 27, 2015

LAST TIME ON ANGELS VS. ATHLETICS…
Oh, what a promising series it was. The Angels and A’s hooked up in Anaheim a week ago and the Halos took two of three. The true promise though came from them opening the series with a 14-run outburst. It looked as if the offensive struggles were on the verge of dissipating. They then proceeded to score two runs in each of the next two games, including the series finale in which they won despite only getting one hit. It ended up being one of the most worrisome series victories that you could imagine.

THE MATCH-UPS
TUESDAY, 4/28: Jered Weaver vs. Sonny Gray
This is just all kinds of bad, right? Sonny Gray dominated the Angels last time they met and Weaver just isn’t getting any better. It is an ascending ace versus a descending ace. All kinds of aces will be involved.

OK, not all kinds of aces.

WEDNESDAY, 4/29: Matt Shoemaker vs. Jesse Hahn
Maybe. We think this will be the pitching match-up, but we aren’t sure. Jesse Hahn was having blister problems and missed his last scheduled start as a result. Maybe he makes it back, maybe he doesn’t. Matt Shoemaker is out on bereavement leave and is expected back, but the team has made no such announcement. Maybe he won’t, it would certainly be understandable. To be fair, their media relations team was kind of busy with other matters, so they just may have been too busy to get to the Shoemaker news.

THURSDAY, 4/30: Garrett Richards vs. Scott Kazmir
Oh, look. Another Angels mistake come back to haunt them. I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about Hamilton anymore, but you have to admit that it is uncanny that they’d have to go up against another ill-advised acquisition that they released early from a big contract out of frustration. To be fair, the Angels have released or traded for peanuts so many players in the middle of large multi-year contracts, that it is probably impossible to play an opponent that doesn’t have one of their past mistakes on the roster.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQW3KW3DCc]

OFFICIAL PREDICTION
Even with two seemingly favorable pitching matchups and the A’s being in a legitimate slide, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. A series loss just seems inevitable, if only as karmic retribution now that the Hamilton trade has been finalized. The Angels will get one win, but they will score fewer than ten runs total in the three games.

UNOFFICIAL PREDICTION (so don’t hold me to it)
We’ll get one more embarrassing, tone deaf response from Arte Moreno at some point in the series and then we’ll all finally be able to move on from this nonsense.