MLB Playoff Race 2015: LA Angels In The Dugout
The LA Angels, after suffering a devastating loss to the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, may have dug themselves into a deep hole in the ground.
The Angels a few weeks ago were competing against fellow American League rivals, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, for first place in their division and also one of the AL wildcard seeds.
Unfortunately the Astros seemed to have take on the roll of Big Bully four games ahead of the Angels.
This season currently the Astros are leading the series 8 to 7.
This is narrow and how narrow 1st place in the AL West is.
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Curveball coming from the mound now that the Astros lost to the Rangers on Wednesday September 16, 2015 falling to one 1.5 games behind the Rangers who sit atop the division in first place.
They went from worst in the Al West to first in one year as of currently and the season come to an end.
It is a tight race in the wild card race alone plus an even tighter knit race in the Al West division. Who will come up victorious at the end of the regular season in 3 weeks?
On Wednesdays game to add to all the disaster Angeles Pitcher Jered Weaver was ejected from the game against the Seattle Mariners.
Hold your breath, Angels fans.
Lets hope he isn’t suspended and he is just fined from the pitch he threw that hit a Mariners player which caused him to get ejected from the game in the 5th inning.
The Angels may have been pitched a sinker down low in the dirt because they lead the season series against the Rangers 11-6 yet are sitting in 3rd place in the Al West.
When just a month ago they were competing for first place in the division then after the Astros and some fellow teams around the league defeated them then they were looking at the second wild card spot in the AL and now they are sitting in the wild card race as the fourth team out of the two teams that will make it.
Yet there is hope the Angels can make a push with 17 games left in the regular season to make the playoffs and enter strong.
The four teams in the Al Wild Card race are as follows — New York Yankees (80-65), Houston Astros (77-69), Minnesota Twins (75-70), and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The Angels next 3 matches are against Al Rivals Minnesota Twins.
Well, the good news fro them is if they defeat the Twins they will pass them up in the AL wild card race and move to 3rd right behind the Astros for the 2nd wild card playoff spot.
They end the season as well with a 4 game series against the first place Texas Rangers.
The Angels lead the series with these division foes and they can end the year strong with playoffs lingering in the outfield.
One situation is that the Angels will need help from the other teams around the league to defeat not only their division enemies but also their conference foes who are the wild card race.
As in all of all sports a common theme in the end of the season is that the teams who are not going anywhere at all have a tendency to defeat teams who fighting to make the playoffs.
This happens in baseball as well.
The Angels can only hope that the Yankees, Twins, and Astros are upset by underdog teams while they themselves hope to secure victories in order to lift them in the standings to make the playoffs.
Bottom Line: LA needs a lot of help.
The irony is that the teams the Angels are competing with in the standings to make the playoffs and the first place Rangers in their division is that all 4 teams did not make the playoffs in 2014 of last year.
My question for the Angels is can they hit a grand slam and make the playoffs this year with a little help from other teams in the league?