VS. 
MATCH-UP MOTTOS
FRIDAY, 8/5: Jered Weaver vs. Scott Kazmir: Ghosts of pitchers past
Scott freaking Kazmir. Unbelievable. it isn't like Kazmir is great, but he has been pretty solid for the Indians, which just one of the many knives in the Angels gut that has been getting twisted all season long. I don't think I'm exaggerating at all when I say that it is unavoidable that Kaz will throw a perfect game against the Halos and then they will simply disband the entire Angels franchise.
SATURDAY, 8/6: C.J. Wilson vs. Ubaldo Jimenez: Ghosts of pitchers future?
Ubaldo Jimenez will likely have his club option declined this winter, making him a free agent. I'm terrified that Jerry Dipoto is going to jump on him. He is a shell of his former self having lost a lot of velocity the last few years, but he still misses bats at a decent rate and is a flyball pitcher. He is basically Tommy Hanson. JeDi seems to be very willing to take chances on pitchers who had been great at one point but since declined. Ubaldo might be too hard for him to resists, which is a shame because he is pretty washed up.
SUNDAY, 8/7: Jerome Williams vs. Justin Masterson: Ghosts of pitchers present
Seriously, why is Jerome still in the rotation? I know Vargas is due back soon (assuming he isn't traded), but what is there left to see with Williams that we haven't already seen? Call up Matt Shoemaker. Call up Michael Roth. Call up anyone with even a remote chance of being a useful rotation member because Williams isn't that guy and we don't need anymore starts from him to figure that out.
MISERY INDEX
The index reading for this series is: Cuyahoga River
With the Angels' playoff odds at 0% now, I figured it was time to shake it up. The False Hope Index will hereby be replaced with the Misery Index which is a series by series rating of how brutally painful it is to watch this team. This series, in honor of the team visiting Cleveland is Cuyahoga River, the river in Cleveland that infamously lit on fire despite the fact that, you know, it is a river. Like the Angels season, it is something terrible that happened that defies logic. You're still horrified but you're also in disbelief. That's where we are with the Halos right now, they have achieved a level of awful that nobody could have seen coming.
GOOD NEWS
The games are being played in the Eastern time zone, so they start earlier in the day. That means you have a few hours extra hours to cope with the depressing outcome and avoid going to bed angry. Never go to bad angry.
BAD NEWS
The stolen base parade probably isn't going to end this series. Michael Bourn and Jason Kipnis alone could run wild on the Halos, although the scheduled starters in this series are the pitchers who actually seem to give a crap about trying to hold runners on. Still, expect Cleveland to at least try and test Iannetta and Conger.
AMBIVALENT NEWS
Yeah, I'm using the block 'C' logo for Cleveland. I find the Chief Wahoo logo wildly offensive. I'm not trying to make a big point, I'm just not going to tacitly support a racist image by continuing to use it. I don't care if agree or disagree, but I also know that anytime this subject comes up that some lunatic leaves some crazy diatribe full of capitalized words in the comment section. Save your keyboard the agony because I don't care.
CLOSING STATEMENT
Remember last season when everyone wanted the Angels to fire Scioscia and hire Terry Francona? Well, Cleveland hired him after a few consecutive seasons where they started strong and faded down the stretch. Guess what happened to the Indians this year.
I'm not criticizing Francona or defending Scioscia even, I'm just saying that maybe, just maybe, we are all overrating the manager's influence on a team's fortunes.
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