The Angels lost 7-3 to the Rangers in the final game of the series and fell back to 4 1/2 games out of first place in the AL West. However, we need to look on the bright side: when the Rangers came to town on Friday, they had the possibility of leaving Angel Stadium with a 9 1/2 game lead in the AL West. The fact that the Angels are only down by 4 1/2 games seems almost miraculous after their atrocious start to the season. The Angels are now 6th in the Wild Card race behind only the Cleveland Indians and the beast that is known as the AL East.
I found out some new information regarding the revised Wild Card today that strikes me as odd. We already knew that there would be two Wild Card teams this year, but what most of us didn't know was that the winning team from the one-game Wild Card playoff game would be rewarded with two straight home games against a defending division winner. The compensation is that the final three games are at the division winner's home field, but is still unfair because the division winner has the potential to be down 2-0 in a 5 game series without ever playing a home game. There's no way that the rules are going to change again this year, but I talked with Angel's beat writer Bill Plunkett who says not to expect this to be something we see in future seasons. EVERYONE, except maybe teams in the Wild Card race, are against this idea.
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