Good Weather Ahead

August is the crappiest month, weather-wise, for baseball in its strength-sapping heat. This humid athlete crushing inferno known as August affects many teams. There is a reason that the Rangers have, historically, faded in the first round of the playoffs: They never recover from their August wilt.

Many cities are miserable places to be in during the month of August. Seattle and Anaheim are not two of them. But these teams travel, so forget that stat-head ruse known as "Strength-of-Schedule", let's look at reality instead of stats. How about where the two contenders for the AL West crown will be playing on the road this month:

Angel August Road Games:
Oakland - 1 - Climate is just fine.
Toronto - 3 - Indoor climate is just fine.
Boston - 4 - This sucks, as the heat/humidity/asshole fans exacerbate the playing of 4 games in 3 days
Seattle - 3 - Climate is just fine.

Mariner August Road Games:
Baltimore - 4 - Weather: hot as a skillet at Dennys, humid as a steamroom
Chicago - 3 - Weather: Might be nice, might drive a man to drink and drugs with its suffocating humidity drowning one's ability to even perceive the heat.
Minnesota - 3 - Indoor climate is just fine.
Texas - 4 - Ever lost forty pounds of fat and twenty of muscle? Arlington in August for four games will get you close to both of these marks.
Cleveland - 1 - the heat and humidity will make Team Frapuccino wish they had given Paul Byrd his snow-bound no-hitter.
Toronto - 1 - Indoor climate is just fine.

Add to this a road trip for Seattle in the first (still-muggy) week of September to New York and Detroit while the Angels stay home and you have a decidedly peachy weather forecast favoring the Angels during the dog days of a hit pennant race!