The Angels are shutout 3-0 by Rangers, lose Wild Card spot, lose series. Oh.

Angels 0 Rangers 3

So, the Angels just lost their third game out of four against the Rangers, and they did so by being shutout at the Big A. I wish the shoe were on the other foot, because nothing is better than winning a four-game series against Texas. Instead, the Angels lost the series finale 3-0, their 10th time being shutout in 2017, and they’re now 0.5 games out of the Wild Card spot they once held in that magical time know as Last Week.

That sucks.

This homestand was not going to be easy, exactly, facing the Rangers, Astros and Athletics, but these guys had momentum to spare coming home from their triumphant road trip; I, the regular dude fan, felt like a world beater, so I can only imagine what the actual team felt like, that adrenaline-fueled confidence seeping out of their pores. Oh wait, I forgot. They did not have adrenaline-fueld confidence seeping out of their pores. They had Tryptophan-fueled doubt oozing out of their noses at the most embarrassing moments possible.

That’s my roundabout way of saying they sucked, and this series sucked. Albert Pujols sucked and Mike Scioscia did some really sucky managing at times and the bullpen had some shockingly sucky innings and the Halos batters were the epitome of suckitude when it came to clutch, runners-on hitting (tonight, they were 0-11 w/RISP, multiple innings being ended in utmost FUBAR fashion; intriguing and threatening situations that the Halos not only didn’t capitalize on, but situations that they extinguished themselves).

If you’re keeping score at home, then just write SUUUUUCKKKKKKKK over the area where tonight’s box score should go. Trust me, that is the official scoring, I’ve consulted with multiple people on it. I guess I should just let this series go, though. Right? It had some long games, and disappointing games, and deflating games, and there were even some real deal, fist-pumping, hard chargin’ baseball plays, like Mike Trout’s sickest throw of the season (maybe his career?), or the Valbuena batflips and Simba doing bare-handed catch-and-throws...but all of that is gone out the window, as the Violent Femmes would say.

Catch me, we are falling.

Coming up on the home cooking horizon, we’ve got Houston, the AL West 1st place big shots. Great. With every game being the one that we could possibly look back on and pin a possible missed postseason upon, these types of series go far to defeat my #ToD hypeability. I start to wonder if they have what it takes, and at the same time, I think they’re just playing possum. The pessimist is neck and neck with the optimist, and it’s all Texas’ fault. Texas is the reason that the momentum’s dead.

But Texas, or rather Houston, can also be the reason that the fire is stoked and gets roaring once again in no time. It wouldn’t really shock me to see the Halos come out and stomp the Astros into the ground random city dwellers smooshed by some z-grade Kaiju. That’s just how this universe works.