Halo Again

 

A good sequel must raise the stakes.

'The Angels Fail to Make the Playoffs' series has been going on for a while and it's getting stale. Thowing in Shohei Ohtani made things fresh for a while, but Anthony Rendon wasn't the mood-booster the franchise had been looking for, and the series needs a new element to mix up the monotony. Other film franchises know how to raise the stakes; the Fast and Furious saga had a family drama play out with Charlize Theron, John Wick raised the runtime and brought in Donnie Yen, and Mission Impossible kept upping the height that Tom Cruise would fall from. The Angels need that kind of raised stakes to keep people from walking away and make this installment even more exciting.

What's that? Shohei Ohtani's gonna leave if they don't make the playoffs this year? Now we're talking.

You see now, this team has a reason to not fall apart like they do every year. Cause usually it's 'well, we didn't make the playoffs...BUT WE WILL NEXT YEAR', and that's like if there were 7 Bad News Bears sequels and none of them ended in a win. But this time, they lose, Ohtani walks, and possibly other players, even Trout, will want to walk too. And it's not like it's a rumored thing, Ohtani has said this on record, and it's echoed through every move the Angels have made. Bringing up Zach Neto now. Finally activating Griffin Canning. Keeping Adell, Livan Soto and Andrew Velasquez as depth pieces. They're thinking methodically because they do not want the same outcome to happen.

And that's why it's equally as cinematic when something tragic happens, like Logan O'Hoppe, after having an incredible start since coming over from the Phillies as a fill-in for Max Stassi, gets injured and is out for several months. That's yet another way our heroes get knocked down that they have to overcome. I don't know how much longer Stassi's out, because Matt Thaiss and Chad Wallach don't look to me like confident solutions to the problem, and the next-best catcher in the organization is a 20-year-old in double-A that, as well as he's hitting right now, isn't ready yet [future readers of the blog, I am referring to Edgar Quero, which will make this very funny if he ends up being huge]. 

At the very least the rotation is looking better than it was. Ohtani, Sandoval, Canning and Detmers are providing the most confident work, and while it's upsetting that Tyler Anderson is taking this long to come around, he's still got a lot of starts ahead of him. Ohtani has 38 Ks, 3 wins and a 0.64 ERA, and Sandoval, though coming off some rocky starts, is still a valued innings eater. It's also nice that Jose Quijada, Carlos Estevez, Matt Moore, Tucker Davidson and Andrew Wantz have been such strong relief options for the Angels.

There's enough here to give me some hope of the Angels sneaking in this year, but we're still in April and Trout's still healthy, so I know not to hold my breath.

Coming Tonight: Third baseman for a team that was looking hot about a week ago and has now come back to earth a little.