No team had won a series from the Dodgers this month until the Angels swept them over the weekend. For the Angels, a great weekend.
On one hand, maybe this is the start of something big. The Minnesota Twins just put up a 13-game winning streak. Why can’t the Angels?
Advertisement
On the other hand, the Angels just swept the world’s best team and they still are in last place.
No team had a gloomier outlook than the Athletics this time last year, coming off back-to-back 100-loss seasons and playing out a somber final season at the Oakland Coliseum. But the A’s finished ahead of the Angels last season, and the A’s are ahead of the Angels again this season.
Read more: Angels defeat Shohei Ohtani and rival Dodgers, but they aspire for much more
Not by much, to be sure, and we’re still in May. Yet, as the Angels and Athletics open a series Monday in Sacramento, the team that endured a rebuild because its ownership left its front office no other choice appears to have a brighter future than the team spinning its wheels because its ownership refuses to rebuild.
Advertisement
The A’s rebuild all the time: build, win, lose the best players and lose lots of games, rebuild. For all of this century, A’s ownership has maintained it could not spend big without big revenue from a new stadium. When the A’s get to Las Vegas in three or four years, we’ll see.
The A’s never have spent $70 million on a contract, or $100 million on an annual team payroll. In this century, however, they have more postseason appearances and more winning seasons than the Angels.
After the 2021 season — a fourth consecutive winning season that included three playoff berths — the A’s decided it would cost them too much to keep winning. The owners locked out players that winter, and the wrecking ball hit as soon as the lockout ended.
“Within the first hour,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said last week at Dodger Stadium, “we had traded Matt Olson.”
Advertisement
The Atlanta Braves acquired Olson, an All-Star first baseman, to replace Freddie Freeman. By week’s end, the A’s had traded two other All-Stars, third baseman Matt Chapman and pitcher Chris Bassitt. By year’s end, they also had traded pitcher Sean Manaea and catcher Sean Murphy.
“That made it very difficult to bounce back quickly without being able to use the free-agent market,” general manager David Forst said.
The Olson trade brought back catcher and cleanup batter Shea Langeliers. The Chapman and Bassitt trades…