It's High Noon in the Wild, Wild, American League West

Post date: Aug 25, 2011 7:57:57 PM

The American League West often reminds me of an old Western movie, the grandfather clocks around town and in the local saloon hit high noon; the Catholic church bells are ringing and the two biggest, baddest, guns in the West are about to square off.

This is exactly what comes to mind when thinking of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Texas Rangers, both teams are very scrappy, one has been to the mountaintop as recently as last year but was not quite able to reach the summit and raise the trophy, while the other has only been to the mountaintop once before but they were able to plant their flag on the summit of Major League Baseball history.

It's been a wild ride these last few weeks. Both the Angels and Rangers seem to have been riding the Teeter totter trading places leading the American League West. The Angels fell off for a while, they fell into a free fall falling behind as much as six games, losing three out of four to the Rangers in their most recent series didn't help much. They were able to recover, avoid the sweep, by winning the last game against the Rangers and they haven't looked back ever since. The six-game deficit is now down to two in the half, the Angels are back on the Teeter totter and have a very legitimate shot at winning the American League West.

    • Standings

American League West

The Angels have made a splash of sorts recently they signed Jared Weaver to a five-year contract extension therefore securing the services of arguably their best pitcher for the foreseeable future. The Angels have discovered that they have three aces instead of two, in addition to Jared Weaver and Dan Haren they now have Ervin Santana at their disposal. As well as an injection of youth such as Mark Trumbo, Mike Trout, Hank Conger, and Peter Bourjos.

Moving Peter Bourjos to the lead off spot has seemed to help the Angels' offense. I hope that Vernon Wells wakes up from his power slumber soon as we need him to perform, especially since he is an Angel for the foreseeable future. I myself as a fan, have faith that you will come around, but as of now he is not justifying the amount of money he is making. The Angels seem to have lost a little faith in him as well, as evident by the recent actions in benching Wells in favor of the younger Mike Trout in left field. The Angels' offense of production is lacking, all the tools that they need to produce are there, they just need to start getting the bang for their buck if they expect to be successful in the postseason.

It's high noon in the American League West, the Ranger is adjusting his cowboy hat his eyesight is piercing through the Angel, he may be the quicker draw, since he is in his element and is a cowboy by nature. Don't underestimate the Angel's versatile nature, his ability to fly, and attack from unconventional angles, at stake is the opportunity to climb to the mountaintop and possibly cement their place in Major League Baseball history as the World Series Champions of 2011.

-ICE