The Los Angeles Angels are set to face off against the Miami Marlins in a two-game series on Tuesday. This is the second series between these two teams this year with the Angels winning both games last time through. The Angels are playing poor baseball at the moment and are coming off being swept against the Astros, scoring just 4 runs in three games, some defence is issued here as the Astros are one of the best teams in baseball. The Marlins on the other hand are coming into this with a series sweep over the Nationals. Can the Angels bounce back or will Miami continue to build towards a .500 record? Here is my complete prediction and breakdown.
Big Names but no Big Hits
It is safe to say the Los Angeles Angels are not having the season they wanted, but there is still aways to go. Despite scoring just 4 runs in three games against the Astros the Angels are only 2 games out of 2nd in the AL West. To say that the Angels are struggling offensively is probably an understatement, in their last 5 games the Angels are scoring just 2.45 runs per game, batting a combined .143 and striking out a crazy 13.4 times per game. Yikes. Whilst you could say that the Angels bad luck behind the plate cannot last forever, they are facing an elite starter in Sandy Alcantara in this one, but more on that later.
Whilst their numbers recently are terrible, the Angels haven’t exactly been good all season. They are just 22nd in runs per game, 24th in batting average, 23rd in on base percentage and 16th in slugging. The Angels may be waisting the careers of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. For the season Ohtani has punched in 51 RBI’s to lead the team as well as tagging on 18 home runs and pitching at a 2.68 ERA. Trout is also producing with a .272 average, .995 OPS and 47 RBI’s. The problem for the Angels is the complete lack of depth, so teams are able to completely pitch around their two stars.
For this game we will see Noah Syndergaard also known as Thor who is throwing a 3.86 ERA on the season for a 5-6 record over 65.1 innings of work. These are solid numbers but he has produced some peculiar starts this season. In his last start he pitched 7 innings for 6 hits and 3 earned runs.
Marlins Keep’n it Goin’
The Miami Marlins started off the season shaky, but have really turned this around in the past month. They are currently on a 5 game win streak, including a extra inning victory to close the Nationals with a sweep. They are currently in fourth place in the NL East, as they are only 11 games back. At the plate, the Marlins have been on fire as of late. They are currently scoring 4.43 runs per game and hitting .244 as a team. This is the 14th most runs scored per game and the 13th highest overall team batting average.
The Marlins surprisingly have multiple guys who perform when it counts. They have 8 players with 20+ RBI’s and 4 with 10+ homers. Jazz Chisholm leads the team with 45 RBI’s and 14 home runs, whilst batting at .254. They have an aggressive play style, with 62 stolen basses on the season already, second in the league. When they get on base expect them to put Thor under pressure.
Sandy Alcantara will be making the start for the Marlins in this one. He is having an incredible season posting a 8-3 record, 1.95 ERA and 09.95 WHIP. He is also unbelievable at going deep into games having already thrown 115.1 innings and coming off a 9 innings outing where he allowed 3 runs. If all goes right, Alcantara should have little issue working through this struggling Angels lineup.
Fading the Angels
For this game I am looking to trust in Sandy to dominate a struggling Angels team. Los Angeles looked horrible in their previous series against the Astros and I just don't see them scoring enough to keep up with Miami. Trust Miami’s aggressive offense to put multiple runs on the Angels and Miami to get their sixth straight win.
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