Calling All Angels

Nobody is happier than I am that the Angels are off to a 4-10 start. It is their worst start in franchise history and the Angel fans who actually watch the games are in panic. It is magnificent.

It is with a tone of sadness I tell all you Angel fans not to panic yet. There is still plenty of hope for this Angel team.

There have been a couple of surprises that have caused this problem. The obvious one is the injury to ace Jared Weaver. Weaver is by far the best pitcher on the Angels and a top five pitcher in the American League. The Angels rotation has a lot of holes and the only real consistent pitcher is Weaver. Without him their rotation is a mess.

Another injury that has impacted the team is the injury of Erick Aybar. He is an average shortstop but it hurts any team to lose an everyday player. They have replaced him with journeyman Brendan Harris and Andrew Romine. This makes the bottom of their lineup so much weaker. Opposing pitchers respect Aybar much more than Harris or Romine.

Another everyday player who is out is Alberto Callaspo. He is nursing a lingering calf injury and they replaced him with Luis Jiminez. Jiminez has played well but reminds me of former Angel and current Ray Sean Rodriguez. His bat will cool off eventually and he is not a permanent solution.

Despite these unforeseen injuries that have plagued the Angels, they have issues that many analysts saw coming.

Tommy Hanson is not even half the pitcher he was three years ago when he broke into the major leagues. He allowed 27 home runs last season, which was among the top in the National League. It is universally known that he is declining and the funny thing is, the Angels are paying him seven times more than he made last season. Reread that and try to process this information.

The bullpen is bad and the injury to Kevin Jepsen is not helping. The only bright spots in the pen are the lefties Scott Downs and Sean Burnett. Ernesto Frieri is holding down the fort as closer quite nicely but he has only gotten two save chances.

I was at Angel Stadium last Friday and it was basically a ghost town. The stadium was half full which is common for weekday games but pretty bad for Friday night games. I could (and maybe will) write an entire column on how bad their new public address announcer is. Yes I am that weird. And fan morale is down despite the enthusiasm from the offseason.

But despite the fact that the Angels are screwed financially, tickets are overpriced, and a guy who shouldn’t be in the league anymore is starting at shortstop daily now, the Angels have some hope. Just remember that a guy named J.B. Shuck was the Angels leadoff hitter on Saturday. If a guy the Astros rejected doesn’t get the Angels fan base excited, I don’t know what will.