Heated Rivals: Rangers vs.

Angels Update
Little more then a week ago we were looking at the AL West division race and it looked bleak for the Angels. The Rangers took 3 o t of ! in the head to head series and the Angels narrowl" escaped with a game ! win. # games o t$ it looked like the Angels were starting to fade into the clo ds like their heavenl" namesakes.

After a few balls" moves b" manager %ike &cioscia and some solid offense the Angels won this weekend's series and moved to within 3 games of the Rangers. ( have to admit ( tho ght L.A was going to fall apart like m" )ardinals$ b t ( was wrong. &cioscia's decision to p t *rvin &antana and +ered Weaver on 3 da"s rest took g ts$ b t it paid off. &antana gave them a win on &at rda" night and Weaver at least kept them in the game on & nda". ( love when a manager is willing to make what he thinks is the right decision$ conventional baseball be damned. There are too man" managers and coaches that aren't willing to stick their necks o t$ b t when the" do and it works it can inspire the whole team. + st ask &ean ,a"ton.

Heated Rivals is an nderstatement$ it was down right scorching- .o 've got to give both teams /and the Rangers' fans0 a lot of credit for the wa" the" to ghed it o t in the sweltering Te1as heat . While all the wimps on the east coast ran like school girls from a categor" 2 storm$ the Rangers and Angels d ked it o t in the midst of a heat wave that had the on3field temperat re reading 22# degrees at game time on & nda". ('ve created stronger g sts of wind after eating 3 bean b rritos then H rricane (rene created on the east coast$ 4 st sa"in.

Regardless$ the AL West race is back and better then ever. ( still like the Rangers$ b t it looks like

&cioscia$ Weaver$ and the rest of the L.A gang aren't going 5 ietl" after all. We'll have more pdates in the coming weeks as we follow this race$ as well as the other close division races.