11-game lead with 15 to play has Angels coasting into playoff berth
If there's such a thing as a comfortable lead in September, the Angels have it. And a bag of chips.
A double-digit lead with 15 games left.
You do the math. You can count on your fingers.
Angels manager Mike Scioscia said before Friday's game against the bumbling Astros that he's not into magic numbers and distractions. He even said he didn't know what the Angels' lead was in the AL West.
Following Friday's 11-3 rout of the visiting Astros, the Angels have an 11-game lead in the AL West with a magic number of five to clinch the division.
"There's a little blood in the water as to how the standings are," starter C.J. Wilson said. "But there's a lot more wins we need to have. We need to win in October to achieve our goals."
The Angels can make like Rory McIlory when he has a four-shot lead at a major. He's so good he doesn't have to check the scoreboard. The Angels should be dancing on the Angel Stadium field during this 10-game homestand.
The biggest decision on this homestand might be how to celebrate.
How the Angels won (09/12): Trout, Kendrick drive in four runs on way to 9th straight win
There's so many numbers to love if you're the Angels. A nine-game win streak and a 17-5 record since Garrett Richards was lost for the season. Just 16 days ago, the Angels had a one-game lead over Oakland. And now, it's 11.
Yes, an ELEVEN-game lead in mid-September.
It's hard not to notice that gargantuan lead. Only Baltimore has a bigger lead in the majors, and that's 11½ in the AL East.
"It's better to have a big lead," Wilson said. "For a lot of these guys, it's their first chance to go to the playoffs. But our focus isn't on the lead. It's on how we play and once you get into the playoffs. The only teams you play are good teams."
This will be Mike Trout's first foray into the postseason, along with Kole Calhoun and so many others.
The Angels sure are in their happy place.
It's a lot happier place for the Angels than last September, when the Angels were 78-84 and finished 18 games behind Oakland.
Angels Mailbag: Mike Scioscia
Scioscia has every reason to feel as secure as Linus and his blanket in mid-September.
Starting to feel a little like that 2002 bullpen and offense around here? (Otherwise known as the last year the Angels won the World Series.)
"I hope so," Scioscia said. "We can do a retrospect at some point when this is all done. There's a great energy on this team. It's not a clone of any team we've had here. It has its own personality. ...
"They're not distracted with anything. There's one purpose and that's (Saturday's) game. Hopefully, we play well enough and then go to the next game. We'll see where it leaves us."
The Angels are sitting pretty. Even if Scioscia isn't looking at a hard copy of it.
"I'll look at the standings in a week,'" Scioscia said. "Standings become a distraction. Magic numbers become a distraction. There's a time and a place for that. It"s not right now."
The Angels and Wilson got off to a slow start Friday and were down 3-0 against to the Astros, who have lost nearly as many games (82) as the Angels have won (92).
The Angels offense got hot, as it usually does, with a seven-run fifth inning and it was another comeback for a team that has made its living in rally fashion. The Angels have won a major-league best 45 games when trailing this year, which is two off the pace set in 2009 — the last time the Angels made the playoffs.
They've scored 81 runs over the last nine games. When you're scoring runs in droves September, it's hard not to look at those standings.
Meet Trevor Hendershot, a huge Angels fan, who inspires Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, David Freese and the rest of the Halos players and fans.
Scioscia felt different about September scoreboard-watching when he was a catcher for the Dodgers. He said then-manager Tommy Lasorda kept players focused.
"You're a little more anxious," Scioscia said of watching standings as a player in September. "You have to control that tendency. A lot of that stuff can be a distraction.
"(Lasorda) made us focus on the game and getting ready to play the next one if we won or lost. We didn't focus on what other teams were doing."
Two-game leads in September are nothing. An 11-game lead is silly good.
Oakland has hit such a rough patch that it might be out of a wild-card spot by season's end. There's plenty of focus on the A's-Seattle Mariners series this weekend, and then the Angels-Mariners series, starting Monday, which is when the Angels could conceivably clinch the AL West title.
If Scioscia really isn't looking at the standings, by the time he takes a peak next week, he could already be drenched in champagne.
Numbers don't lie.
