How Could You Possibly Lose?

 The Oakland Athletics of recent years are bad. Real Bad. So bad that they're moving to Vegas. So bad that it's hard to think of any good players. Sure, they send an all star or two every year, but usually as a reserve that they have to carry so every team has representation. They're not Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns bad where they lose EVERY game, but you better believe every team that sees them on the schedule breathe a sigh of relief they they're getting an easy series that they can either tune up the team if they're struggling or easily continue a winning stretch.

So imagine how embarrassing it would be to hit seven home runs against these guys and still lose!

The 2022 version of the A's went 60-102. Worst record in baseball. The 2022 Los Angeles Angels weren't much better, going 73-89 for third place in the division. The Angels are bad, and they shouldn't be according to all the experts. This team featured Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Ask MLB Network's Brian Kenny and his imaginary WAR stat and he'll tell you Trout is the greatest player in the game today, if not all time. And the fact that Ohtani can pitch and hit (but never in the same game like Ruth could do) should mean that technically you can say the Angels had THREE of the best players in baseball (Trout, Ohtani the pitcher and Ohtani the hitter) and yet the team never wins.

A reason the Angels never win could be that the other 23 players on the roster are just the worst ever, but the odds of that are slim. No team can field a lineup filled with all stars. Yeah, the Murderer's Row Yankees and the Big Red Machine are held up as star studded lineups, but both those teams still had "mere humans" in their lineups to go along with the Babe Ruths, Lou Gehrigs and Pete Roses. Who was Joe Dugan? Exactly, he was a '27 Yankee but otherwise anonymous. And if it weren't for his son, no one would know who Ken Griffey was despite being on Cincinnati during their run of dominance.

There's also the fact that baseball has greatly expanded their playoffs to include more and more teams. Now 14 teams can qualify for postseason play-that's almost half the league. You no longer need to push for 100 wins to qualify for October, just be barely passable. The Angels still fail to qualify. For the longest time, Angels fans cried that Trout can't do it alone. After Ohtani arrived they changed their tunes that Trout and Ohtani can't do it alone. They'll never admit that these guys are a tad bit overrated.

Now relax, when I call Ohtani and Trout overrated, that does not mean that I'm calling those guys bad. They are still among the best players in baseball. But when they are constantly billed as the greatest players of historical status, it comes off as a bit overblown when they don't have the results to back up such claims. Trout has a lot of great stats and moments, but NEVER when it counts most. Plus he's a glass cannon; always injured and never available for his team when they really need it. Seriously, he spends more days on the shelf than he does in the pennant race. And the few times he can help his team down the stretch run with LA still alive for a playoff spot, he lacks that clutch ability to take charge of a game and will his team passed the finish line like a true elite talent. Kirk Gibson limped to the plate in the '88 World Series to win, Thurmon Munson would wrap his injured body in athletic tape and look like a mummy and still go out to play Catcher for back to back championships...Mike Trout is a top tier talent when he's on the field, but he so easily can chip a nail and be lost for 3 weeks, which counters his value. Sure, he can have a 5436573 WAR rating when he's on the field, but it's pointless when he's missing more games than he plays in.

Shohei Ohtani is also a glass cannon, but even if he were healthy all the time, his effect is limited because he insists he can do both. He's a power hitting DH, but he doesn't hit in games he pitches, so his run support is dismal, and 2024 will be a lost season for his pitching side because of injury, and people seem to not want to admit that maybe he should only hit while he can maintain an elite bat. He's a great pitcher, and a great hitter, but combine both and the Angels win fewer games as a result. It's not their fault entirely, Ohtani insists that he get to do both, and the Angels were only able to sign him if they gave into that demand. His talent is stretched too thin, and it's a self inflicted issue. 2024 should be an MVP year for the Dodgers because Shohei is only going to play DH, allowing him to rack up some proper hitting numbers.

But enough rambling. Let's get to the meat of the update, and the cards to go with it. Two years ago on August 4, 2022, the Athletics were in town to play the Angels for a Thursday afternoon getaway day game. If you wanted to embody the Angels issues in a single game, show them this game. The team slugged SEVEN home runs. SEVEN! And they lost. To the Athletics. Ohtani hit two of the homers, while Mike Trout was out of the lineup because of *spins wheel* back spasms. Ohtani wasn't pitching this day, but his bat could counter that, right? Right?

The score was 1-0 in the 2nd inning. Ohtani had gone deep in the 1st and up stepped Kurt Suzuki to add a home run of his own. 2022 was the final year in Suzuki's long career and his card showed he still had credible pop for a 6 on-base catcher.

With the score 2-0 in his favor, the Angels were relying on starter Janson Junk to put in a solid effort and secure the W for the home team. Junk did what his name implied in the 3rd inning and fell to pieces, allowing 6 runs and being unable to get out of the inning on his own. The lowly Athletics seized the lead and wouldn't relinquish it. Even for a 4IP pitcher, this was a bad performance.

The Angels weren't taking things lying down however, and responded in the bottom of the inning with another homer. Ward brought more credible power with a respectable 8 on-base to close the gap to 6-3.

Touki Toussaint was called in to bail the Angels out of Junk's 3rd inning mess. And like his card implies, they were relying on him to go well beyond a single inning as they tried to rally the offense to come back in this game. However, in the 4th, Touki gave up an additional 2 runs to Oakland, putting the Angels in an 8-3 hole.

Adell, like Sukuzi before, has a sad little 6 on-base but has the chart to take advantage if his opponent gives him a good pitch to swing at. He did just that, giving the Angels a home run for the fourth strait inning.

How could the Angels pull off 4 home runs in 4 innings? It helps that the opposing pitcher only has a control of 2. Not the worst considering the Angels lineup has a bunch of 6 on-base hitters, but luck wasn't on Paul's side for some of those rolls. You're looking at the A's only all star in 2022 (the team was so cheap that they were sending him to the all star game on a commercial flight until the Houston Astros stepped in and offered him a ride). Blackburn was able to finally put a 0 on the scoreboard in the 5th and was able to exit with an 8-4 lead.

Walsh came up in the 6th inning and belted his own homer to draw the Angels closer. Another 6 on-base with high homer potential, so the Angels weren't getting away with any cheap rolls on their charts.

Moll is who surrendered the Walsh home run. Another believable situation with his 2 control.

Snead and his crazy hair was called upon in the 7th inning. Zero control vs Shohei Ohtani is generally a bad matchup, and Shohei proved it by hitting his 2nd homer of the day. It's now 8-6 and Oakland at this point had to start wondering if this would be another case of the Athletics finding another way to choke away a victory.

Mickey Moniak stepped up in the 9th inning to try to help out the cause. With Trout out with (another) injury, Moniak was playing Centerfield and did what Trout never does and hit a clutch 9th inning homer in a game that was still in doubt. Now it's 8-7, the Angels hit an astounding 7 home runs, but because it's the Angels, they were all solo home runs.

Some serious shenanigans were going on in the 9th inning where a 4 control Zach Jackson lost out in a battle with a 4 on-base Mickey Moniak. By now I imagine the Angels were playing every strategy card they could and caught the A's by surprise.

With an embarrassing loss potentially ready to make Oakland even more of a laughing stock, they decided to not take any chances and change pitchers. With 2 outs and the tying run on base, the A's wanted someone fresh to deal with a certain someone who was walking up to the plate. They felt they would need that slight uptick in control to stay ahead of the 9 on-base guy...

By time Ohtani walked up to hit in the 9th inning, he already had 2 homers. The first was way back in the 1st inning, and the other was from the 7th as the Angels struggled to play catch up. Here in the 9th, the tying run was on 1st base and Ohtani had a chance to go deep and be the hero. This is what I am talking about when I say that Ohtani and Trout were great players, but overrated when people act like they're the greatest of all time. People cried foul when Aaron Judge and his record 62 homers won MVP over Shohei, but while Judge was hitting clutch homers to drag a slumping Yankees down the stretch to a division title, Ohtani was getting his moments in less vital situations. On this day in the clutch, Ohtani popped up to end the game, and the Angels ultimately fell short.

The Angels hit an insane seven home runs, and still found a way to lose.