Suspect Angels

[A's Baby Girl]

As baseball's division leaders go, the Angels are about as suspect as they come. In fact, if the Angels didn't play in the featherweight American League West, they wouldn't be in first place.

But there they are, those Angels, on top by one game in the mild, mild West despite the fact that they can't hit and, when they happen to put bat on ball, they don't do it with a lick of power.

The Angels aren't simply offensively inept. They're offensively missing.

"It's not as bad as people think it is," insists always-cheery Mickey Hatcher, the Angels' hitting coach. "Offensively, you need a little luck. And we just haven't had any."


The Angels were tabbed before the season as the runaway favorites in the AL West, but all they're running away from are expectations. Anaheim led the major leagues in batting average last season, but its offensive production has sunk to unthinkable depths in 2005. In the AL, only the A's and Indians have scored fewer runs than the Angels' 185. Oakland and Seattle are the only teams in the league with a lower slugging percentage. Only the A's have a lower OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage). The Angels rank 11th in the AL in batting average (.246). And nobody in baseball has as much trouble getting on base -- by hit, walk, hit-by-pitch, however -- than the Angels. The team's on-base percentage is a pathetic .297.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_yl...nnsi&type=lgns

Damn I wish were playing better

[Steak]

For all the comments Taylor makes on his team, his team is playing so well. I wish we had a team like that. I think Texas got a solid shot of winning the division if their pitching can pitch well. Texas and Angels are so similiar. Only difference Angels pitchers can pitch when they want to.

[riverdunesrat]

And yet they keep winning......