Sean O'Savior?

After a few first inning jitters, which are totally excusable, considering not every 22-year-old is asked to make his first start of the season in Yankee Stadium in the middle of a pennant race, Sean ended up making the New York Yankees look more like Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.

In the Angels commanding 10-2 win last night, there were two clear heroes: Mike Napoli and Sean O'Sullivan. Its pretty clear that the rest of the Angels lineup was pretty pleased to have Macier Izturis back in the lineup as well. This finally looks like a team that could make a serious playoff push.

In O'Sullivan's past major league appearances, including a few starts, he has always looked pretty average. But if you take into account that those were a 21-year-old O'Sullivan, getting his first taste of big league ball, you start to wonder if last night's start was a fluke, or the next wave of young Angel Pitching?

I can only hope that a dominant performance against the best team in baseball (with one of the best, if not the best offenses) is a sign of things to come.

On the bright side, its not going to take a whole lot to impress me more than the man he is replacing, the "Injured" Scott Kazmir.

The Most Important Week of the Season (Seriously).

I wish the above sentence was not hyperbole, but it is. With the Rangers 14-Inning win last night, they took a 5 game lead in the division. They have two more games in Detroit before the important weekend series in Texas against the Angels. The Angels are in New York for the next two days before the flight to Texas. While these are both big series' against two rivals, thats really only half the story.

If the Angels find themselves even further out by the end of the week, god forbid by 8 or 9 games, all signs point to the Angels finding themselves as sellers at the trade deadline. Say goodbye to any of your favorite players, because there is no one on the team that would be safe from a fire sale at this point.

However, if the Angels can manage to creep closer to the Rangers, they would certainly become buyers, and you can say goodbye to any of your favorite prospects, because its likely they will be traded for someone like Lance Berkman, Adam Dunn or (god willing) Carl Crawford.

I think a worst case scenario is that the Angels and Rangers both play .500 baseball for the next six games, and the Angels don't lose or gain any ground. Because then Tony Reagins will likely pull a Bill Stoneman and not do anything at the deadline, to play it "safe". Then we still have a team not good enough to catch Texas, but wont have any extra pieces for the future.

This season reeks of 2006, where a incredibly awful month and a half has the Angels playing catchup all season long, but they will ultimately fall short. The Angels really didn't do anything at the deadline that year either, and were unable to catch the A's.

Also, a note to Reagins, unless you are going to go out and get a quality bat AND a quality arm, don't bother. Trade some of the aging fielders (Abreu, Rivera, Matsui) for a few prospects, and lets focus on getting Crawford and some bullpen help in the off-season. Unless we are going to make an actual effort to catch and pass Texas, whats the point?

Tonight in New York, Sean O'Sullivan makes his first start of the year, as a replacement for the injured Scott Kazmir, against Phil Hughes, the Yankees young All-Star. Its going to be a tough game to win, but like I said, its a must win game in the most important week of the season.