Los Angeles Angels are trying to make their way back into the race in the American League West and they will get that started against the team that is leading it as the second half begins as they visit the Oakland Athletics at the Coliseum.
Oakland is 56-39 this season and is in first place over the Texas Rangers and the team is hoping to continue their strong play in the second half after dominating some teams over the fgirst part of the season. The A's have done a good job since losing a series at Seattle and has won 12 of 17 while putting up a 2.76 ERA over that time and now they will have to face the Angels best pitcher in Jered Weaver on Friday night.
Yoenis Cespedes is coming off his All Star game Home Run Derby win and he is hitting .225 qith 15 homers and 43 RBIs and now he will try and rebound from that average, as he is hitting .321 with a homer and seven RBIs this season versus Los Angeles this season. The Angels know how tough the Athletics can be at home and last time they played the team killed them, outscoring 28-11 in runs while sweeping the series. Weaver has been great against the A's this season and has gone nearly 20 innings without allowing a run.
The Angels are 44-49 this season after getting off to a dreadful start and while Josh Hamilton has been awful, he is showing signs of heating up and along with Albert Pujols, Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo, the team still has a solid lineup and before losing to the Mariners in a sweep, they won 11 of 14 and are hoping to continue that stretch. Weaver will give them a good shot and he usually gets better as the weather gets hotter.
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The Angels have been playing much better towards the end of the first half of the season and now they will start out their quest to get back in the division race against the Athletics, who arguably were playing the best baseball of anyone over the last few days before the All-Star Break. The Mariners might actually play a factor in the division as well, as they were averaging just over three runs per game for the season, Seattle finished a stretch of six games of averaging over six runs per contest and they even added their first sweep of the season over these very same Angels.
The Mariners are at a weird juncture, as they are over 10 games out from a playoffs spot and also feel that they are playing their best ball after coming into this season with high expectations. So what should a team do? Should they go for it all knowing that they might not even get .500 put stand pat at the trade deadline? Or is it time to just sell everyone and hope for a prospect thrown into the mix? The team has some big decision to make with names like Raul Ibanez, Kendrys Morales as well as Brendan Ryan and others.
