TheSportsNotebook’s weeklong statistical overview of each division continues today with the AL West. As we’ve done in earlier overviews of the AL East and AL Central, we’ll run through each team’s league rank in runs scored, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, along with starters’ ERA, bullpen ERA and save percentage. Then we’ll note a couple individual performances worth mentioning and summarize it all in a paragraph.
The AL West has been teasing us with the promise of a heated race all season long, but Texas has held steady with leads sticking comfortably in the range of the 4-game margin they currently hold. Whether it was a midsummer push by Los Angeles, or the current landscape which as Oakland on their heels, […]
The Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Angels are barely hanging on in the AL West race, trailing Texas by 5.5 and 6 games respectively. But the A’s lead the wild-card race and the Angels are just a game out of the playoffs as they begin a crucial three-game series in NoCal tonight. The series’ loser […]
The offense has been Texas’ calling card over the years, even when they were a bad team and they lead the American League in runs scored. It’s a testimony to how good the offense was for three months, because in July the bats were positively atrocious. Josh Hamilton’s slump got media attention and a little public jab from team president Nolan Ryan, but he’s far from alone. The only noteworthy month was turned in by Nelson Cruz, who hit four home runs and slugged. 541 while getting on base consistently. In fact home runs in general weren’t a problem—Hamilton also hit four and catcher Mike Napoli hit five. But Napoli was like Hamilton in that he batted sub-.200, and the team was more like them then they were like Cruz. Texas finished dead last in the AL scoring runs for July
The Los Angeles Angels were the winners in the Zack Greinke sweepstakes, making a deal with the Milwaukee Brewers for the former Cy Young Award winner. The trade offers intriguing angles for three different teams, including LAA’s AL West rival in Texas. TheSportsNotebook runs through the trade’s implications…
The Texas Rangers had moved into sluggish mode lately after their outstanding start. Now they’ve officially upgraded that to struggling. The AL West leaders just played three straight series against their division rivals and lost all three, including dumping three of four to heretofore struggling Oakland. The Rangers’ record is now at 34-25—obviously still a solid season by any measurement, but no longer enough to have the rest of the league far in the rearview mirror, and the race is on in the AL West.
The Los Angeles Angels were gradually working up a head of steam in May and at the end of the month they finally came barreling in full-tilt. Since May 21, Mike Scoscia’s team has gone 9-2, including a series win over the Yankees and including a win in last night’s series opener against first-place Texas. With a record of 27-26 and within 4.5 games in the AL West, the Angels are back on the radar of real contenders.
The AL West race is gradually tightening up, not so much at the top, where Texas still holds a five-game lead on Oakland, but at the bottom, as the LA Angels and Seattle nudge to within manageable distances of the leader. No team’s move has been sharper over the past several days than the Mariners.
With the first set of interleague games coming up in the baseball schedule this weekend and teams having at least 35 games under their belt, we’re a little more than 20 percent of the way through the schedule, so now is as good a time as any to have an early season evaluation session. TheSportsNotebook takes a concise look at what each team has done and what we might expect going forward.
The AL West is the focus of MLB this week, as the Rangers and Angels have split the first two games of their weekend series and will get the ESPN showcase on Sunday night. But let’s not overlook that the Oakland A’s are hanging around and sitting at 17-16 coming into Saturday’s games, 4 ½ back of Texas and 2 ½ ahead of LAA. The A’s have survived an 11-game East Coast road trip and fought their way to a 6-5 record and then split two against Detroit these past two games at home. When you hear of Oakland succeeding, you generally think pitching. But it’s the bats that are helping the A’s hang tough in the AL West right now.
The home run drought of Albert Pujols is getting the media attention, but as we noted in our AL West report last week it isn’t the reason the Los Angeles Angels are buried in the basement , even after Jered Weaver’s no-hitter against Minnesota Wednesday night. Last week we took the bullpen to task. This week TheSportsNotebook goes after another inexcusable Angel failing and it’s their inability to put runners on base.
The Texas Rangers have come blazing out of the gate in the AL West and sit on a 13-3 record and a 5 ½ game lead as we enter the final week in April. Even better for the Rangers is that it’s Oakland, not the Los Angeles Angels, who is in second place. If you believe, along with the rest of the free world, that only the Angels can beat the Rangers in this division, then Texas’ actual working margin is seven games. Not bad for less than three weeks work.