Game Day: A Texas test for Angels, Ohtani

Editor’s note: This is the Monday, June 12, 2023 edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

A big Angels-Rangers series. There’s a phrase you don’t hear every day, or every decade. But it’s happening over the next four nights in Texas.

In other news:

• With the U.S. Open coming to Los Angeles Country Club beginning Thursday, here’s a look at how golf’s major tournaments have grown and changed since the last time L.A. hosted one in 1995.

• The Dodgers, no longer among baseball’s best road teams, lost another away series in Philadelphia before heading home.

• The Galaxy pulled out a much-needed draw in its first visit to first-place St. Louis, showing the club hasn’t quit after Chicharito’s injury.

• The Sparks began a two-game trip by losing in Minnesota after leading by double figures late. They also learned they will be without guard Layshia Clarendon for the next 4-6 weeks.

• Novak Djokovic stands alone with 23 Grand Slam tournament championships after beating Casper Ruud in straight sets in Paris.

• And Compton’s Drew League, a summer basketball Mecca and a positive influence beyond the court, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

It has been seven years since either the Angels or Texas Rangers had a winning record over a complete season, and eight years since both had winning records in the same season, something that has happened only five times in the 2000s.

Here they are, though, the Rangers (41-23) leading the American League West, the Angels (36-31) solidly in third place after winning two of three from the fourth-place Seattle Mariners and 1½ games behind the second-place Houston Astros in the race for a wild-card playoff spot.

The Angels have been winning despite Mike Trout’s month-long slump and Shohei Ohtani’s month-plus of subpar pitching, but this would be a good week for both to snap out of it.

Ohtani is in line to face Rangers ace Nathan Eovaldi on Thursday in the last of a series full of tough pitching matchups for the Angels.

As with most things about the Angels, a lot about this week’s test comes back to Ohtani and his free agency at the end of this season.

Columnist Mirjam Swanson writes in today’s Southern California News Group papers that it wouldn’t make sense for the Angels to trade Ohtani even though such a move before baseball’s Aug. 1 trade deadline would guarantee that they get something in exchange for losing him.

“It’s not happening, anyway. Shohei Ohtani isn’t getting dealt,” Swanson writes. “Not as long as these Angels are within spitting distance of a postseason appearance, and with stretches like this one – six victories in seven games with Sunday’s 9-4 verdict at home against Seattle – confidence is growing that they will be.”

The Angels haven’t been able to win much with Ohtani since he arrived in 2018, but they certainly wouldn’t win anything without him.

Confidence in an Angels playoff run will grow some more if they show they can hang with other playoff contenders. Right now they’re 6-10, and have lost four of five series, against AL teams in playoff spots this morning. That includes losing two of three games to both the Rangers and Astros in Anaheim at the beginning of May.

If that changes, and that phrase “Angels playoff run” stops looking funny, then owner Arte Moreno and GM Perry Minasian will have to see out the season with Ohtani. If that happens, then damn the second-guessers if the Angels end up with no playoffs and can’t re-sign the sport’s greatest talent while getting nobody in return for losing him. If that happens, at least they will have gone down swinging – swinging and throwing hard, in this player’s case.

Justifying that begins with playing the playoff teams tough, and that begins this week in Texas.

TODAY

• The Angels (Tyler Anderson starting) get another shot at division-leading Texas (Dane Dunning) after losing two of three in Anaheim in May (5:05 p.m., BSW).

BETWEEN THE LINES

The Denver Nuggets are favored over the Miami Heat by 8½ or 9 points as they try to wrap up the NBA Finals in Game 5 tonight. Denver has won 22 of 28 games this season when it’s favored by 8 or more.

280 CHARACTERS

“When Yankees and Red Sox are playing a weekend series I don’t even have to check to see who’s on Sunday Night Baseball.” – Writer Art Wilson (@Sham73) tweeting about every national TV executive’s favorite teams.

1,000 WORDS

History within reach: Novak Djokovic of Serbia stretches to play a backhand against Casper Ruud of Norway during the French Open men’s singles final yesterday. Djokovic won, giving him a record 23 Grand Slam victories. The photo is by Clive Mason for Getty Images.

YOUR TURN

Thanks for reading. Send suggestions, comments and questions by email at [email protected] and via Twitter @KevinModesti

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