Angel Bats Make Them Hottest Team in SoCal
Is July too early to start dreaming of a Freeway Series?
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With 31 come-from-behind wins, Mike Napoli and teammates are looking for new ways to celebrate.
No Vladimir Guerrero. No Torii Hunter. No problem.
The Angels are the hottest team in baseball right now, having won six straight and 10 of their last 11. This has given them a three-and-a-half game lead over Texas (a team that just swept a series with the Red Sox and still can’t gain ground).
And it’s all about the bats. In their last seven games, the Angels as a team are hitting .304 and are averaging just shy of seven runs on 11 hits a game. Score seven runs a game and you are going to win a lot. Those bats have sparked a major league leading 31 come-from-behind wins, including another last night on Mike Napoli’s 10th inning double.
And they are doing it without their dreadlocked slugger in Guerrero (thanks to the play of Bobby Abreu). Without the best offensive player throughout the season in Hunter. Instead, suddenly Howie Kendrick is hitting .500 in those last seven games, having driven in five runs. Eric Aybar is hitting .464 and has driven in nine runs in the last week. Kendry Morales is hitting .381 and has scored five runs in that time. And the hot hitting just goes on down through the lineup.
All those hits are covering up for a still pretty pedestrian pitching staff, which has a 4.22 ERA and is giving up 4.5 runs per game in the last week. Those numbers are just slightly better than their season average (ranked in the bottom 10 in the league, so we’re not talking good here). No wonder the Angels have been rumored to be in the Roy Halladay sweepstakes, not to mention looking at other pitchers.
Still, this Angels team is starting to really come together, it is winning games at the pace that people expected of them before the season, when every talking head thought they would run away with the division, just like they did last year.
When the Angels get healthy, this is not a team others will want to see come the playoffs. Especially the Yankees (gotta love that the Angels seem to have their number). The Angels bats are going to score runs and if the pitching can solidify — particularly the middle relief bullpen — the Angels are a very tough out.
That gives Los Angeles two teams looking stronger as the season wears on. July is not too early to start dreaming of a Freeway Series, is it?
