I woke up this morning to an email exchange amongst the hacks about what we should expect from this series. I think it's fair to say that the underlying assumptions were that the Angels are a very good team, and that we'd be lucky to take two in Anaheim.
Now anything can happen in a three-game series, so I'm not predicting anything, but I don't think the Angels are a team to be feared. They're 32-23 and playing well of late (7-3 over their past 10), but look more closely at the numbers. When luck's taken out of the equation, they've played worse offensively and have had significantly poorer pitching than the Jays. BP's third-order wins has them at 26-29, and us at 33-23 (that's second-best in the league, just behind Boston). The Angels' outfield situation rivals ours in its feebleness: between Garret Anderson and Gary Matthews, they've given up 450 PAs to a pair of guys who haven't got a .310 OBP. Casey Kotchman and Chone Figgins are the only really good offensive players they have right now, with Torii Hunter being decent (of course, we can't expect Vlad to continue to struggle like this, and he hit well against the Jays in the last series).
We need Marcum to put on a show and one of Burnett or McGowan to come through. Let's win two and get into Yankee stadium with some momentum (although momentum, of course, doesn't exist).
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I suppose much of what you say is true. But my real concern is that with Canate likely in attendance, vocally cheering on the Angels, the scales will tip in their favour.
Frankly, I'm shocked Canate didn't make it up to Oakland to cheer on his cost-conscious favorites.
I do love me some A's. Are we allowed to still cheer on Lind? I like Wilkerson, but he sucks. I think he's proved that he sucks. I know Lind in RF is a scary image, but it's one we might be willing to see.
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