As the regular season ramps back up again and heads towards the second half, there's a bunch of teams with truly fascinating stories that I'm gonna be keeping a close eye on. One of 'em's the Angels. You can't completely count them out because at any second they could do something crazy.
This team feels like it's hanging all its working pieces together by a thread. Jo Adell has been pounding out a surprisingly stable power season, with 19 homers and 54 RBIs. I think the idea when Adell was coming up was that he'd be a more well-rounded hitter, but being decent as a power bat certainly helps, especially with so many contact hitters on this team. Mike Trout is still healthy, and is hitting .238 with 17 homers and 41 RBIs. He's 5 homers away from 400, and seeing as he's back in Philly tonight it'd be wild if he gets it done this weekend. And that rotation trio of Kikuchi-Anderson-Soriano is actually really strong, and is getting things done still. Kikuchi has a 3.11 ERA and 115 Ks, meaning I certainly was wrong about him this time last year.
Generally, this Angels team is in better shape than they were for the first month or so of play. They lost a ton of games in April, fumbled around last for a bit and were 17-25 midway through May. This was due to some early surges from AL West teams who've calmed down, an early slump from Mike Trout, and having to trot out Tim Anderson every game for a bit too long. Since then they've been a lot closer to .500, and a lot more of a well-balanced team. You'd think that losing Wash would wound them, but Ray Montgomery isn't too far removed from the Wash school of thought, and the team hasn't suffered much since losing him, almost as if the parade of legacy managers like Maddon and Ausmus and Wash didn't work as well as just getting a good system guy in there that the team will listen to. Worked in Philly, why not in Anaheim?
And yet, because the Angels are still strung together with so many odd fits and preliminary pieces, I can't actually tell if they've actually got something. They have enough pieces, like Zach Neto, Taylor Ward and Nolan Schanuel, that I can tell more of what this team's supposed to be than usual, but I don't know if it's gonna be enough. The Rangers are selling, the A's aren't looking to compete. It's a matter of can the Angels develop a team that's good enough to lap the Mariners for a playoff spot. And that's just bonkers enough to be a possibility right now. So we'll see.
Coming Tomorrow- He and two of his bullpen companions made the All-Star team. Now they've gotta hunker down and keep the season alive.