Posted 5:42 PM by Sean
Lots going on over the Memorial Day weekend:

The Angels finished up their homestand with a win over the Devil Rays, giving them a disappointing (all things considered) 3-3 record against Baltimore and Tampa Bay, and putting them at .500 for what must be the hundredth time this season. They just can't seem to pull themselves more than a game or two above even before slipping back down.

Memorial Day, in my mind, is the first milestone of the season - the first point at which you can look at how a team has been playing and get a sense of what they're capable of being. And, while we're still a long, long way from throwing in the towel, there's no question that this team is capable of playing much, much better than their record reflects. One needs only to look at how they dealt with the Yankees and Red Sox last week, or with Tampa Bay over the last couple of games, to see that they shouldn't be struggling against the likes of Baltimore. Given the somewhat tepid start to the season, the Angels have cause to be grateful that they're only 6.5 games in back of Seattle - a manageable deficit, but one that could balloon quickly if the Mariners reel off a big winning streak in the near future.

The Angels lost Troy Percival to a hip strain injury at the end of last week, and so their star closer will spend at least the next two weeks on the DL. This is a pretty big blow, but not as big as all that; they have a number of guys who've been pitching lights-out, and a closer-by-committee approach will probably work in the short term for the Angels much more effectively than it's worked for the Red Sox over the course of the season. I've seen a couple of articles that have mentioned Brendan Donnelly as a temporary replacement at closer, though, so it may be that he's merely pushed back to the 9th, with Weber, Schoeneweis, Shields, and Rodriguez handling set-up duties. Erstad continues to be the more important figure on the DL, and, though the L.A. Times reported over the weekend that he's finally showing some progress in returning from his hamstring tendinitis, but given that he's been quoted as saying that he'll blow it out before undergoing season-ending surgery, a thin sliver of doubt exists as to whether he's maybe just saying what he needs to say to get back into the lineup. I mean, I seriously doubt you could hide something like that, but the guy's pretty intense.

Tonight, the Angels start the second quarter: Memorial Day to the All-Star break. They'll need all the pieces to start fitting to chip away at that six and a half game lead (to say nothing of Oakland's four game lead).