dimitrig

At least we lead the league in some categories.

Well... first... why ignore last year? Second, the Angels have never really performed above their seeding in the playoffs (when they made them) and sometimes did worse. For example, they won the most games in baseball in 2008 and lost 3-1 in the first round.

This is a guy who kept starting Mathis and then shipped Napoli off.

What some people are missing is that this team hasn't just underperformed this season. It has underperformed for a few seasons. The one constant in all of that has been the manager. I don't think he's a terrible manager and there probably isn't anyone available who is better, but a change still needs to be made. Look at what the Lakers did. Is D'Antoni better than Brown? Not really. I think he may be worse. However, Brown got canned and the team has done better since.

A bad staff which is still underperforming relative to last year's performances.

Yes, Pujols blowing out his Achilles would fix this team.

Maybe Maddon needs to go, too, if he can't get his team to perform. Maybe we can swap MS for him and both teams will benefit.

That good, huh? Feels worse.

Working hard, or hardly working?

Here's the deal with professional coaches: They are not always to blame, but you can't fire the entire team (or even the majority) so to get their attention you make the move you can make. Angels are not performing, so what do you suggest ownership do? Just keep hoping something will change season after season? The GMs are making moves for quality players like Greinke, Wilson, Pujols, and Hamilton (and going back even Teixeira), and the draft has yielded Trout but it's just not happening on the field. What do you suggest?

This was also the case last year, where the starting pitchers underperformed relative to expectations. You would not expect a team starting Weaver, Greinke, Haren, Wilson, and Santana to have problems with the rotation, but it did. Butcher?

You forgot: Traded Vernon Wells! That makes up for a lot!

But that was part of the plan - and we would make up for it with our offense which has scored 30 runs less than Oakland so far.

Angels had a pretty loaded team last year and still came up short. Does Sosh need a line-up of All-Stars to sneak into the AL wild card?

Well, it's part of the point. They didn't score even half of 7. Don't blame crappy offense on pitching.

Is 42 the number of runs we are going to give up in this series or is it the number of runs the team will score in April?

That Blanton could have given up 3 runs on 7 hits in 9 innings and the Angels would have still lost. This team sucks all around.

What does it matter when they can only score 2?

5 innings

Angels have a good defense. Let teams put the ball in play. Walks turn a solo shot into a 3 run homer.

What does this have to do with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

They didn't know by the end of the season if they wanted to retain them or not? I think they did and they felt they were not hard to replace so they let them walk and took their chances on Greinke. It was a gamble, but it did not pan out. That's still a failure.

Because up until now he's had zero game-winning RBI for the Angels and you were drawing on that history?

Angels did not need to resign Santana and Haren both. Deciding to let both go when Greinke was also leaving was a mistake.

Dumb and dumber.