The Heavens Haven’t Been Too Friendly With the Yankees
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by Insan
The New York Yankees have had their rivals throughout the years. You’d have to have a lot of teams that hate you when you consistently win year after year. Whether it was the Mariners, the Indians, the Rangers, the Braves, the A’s, or of course, the Red Sox; the Yankees have had heated games against all of them, including in the postseason. In the end, the Yankees won their fair share, earning the respect of all of the teams; not so much their fans. With all of those power houses that gave the Yankees a hard time, who do they have the most trouble with? How about none of them. Going back ten years, the Yankees have a record above .500 against all of the mentioned teams and have beaten them in the playoffs at least once. The Yankees are unbeatable right? Wrong. Who is this almighty team that has crushed the Yankees for the past ten years? The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. That’s right, the same team that has only made the playoffs six times and has won only one championship in their franchise history.
It might come as a shock to some that the Angels have constantly harassed the Yankees over time, however, consider the numbers. Here are the series standings involving the Yankees and Angels from the past ten years.
2007: 6-3, Angels
2006: 6-4, Angels
2005: 6-4, Angels
2004: 5-4, Angels
2003: 6-3, Yankees
2002: 4-3, Yankees
2001: 4-3, Angels
2000: 5-5, Tie
1999: 6-4, Angels
1998: 6-5, Angels
The most important statistic that’s not including in those numbers? The playoffs… The Yankees have never beaten the Angels in the postseason. The two times the teams faced off, in 2002 the Angels defeated the Yankees 3-1 in the ALDS and in 2005 the Angels again defeated the Yankees 3-2 in the ALDS. Including those numbers, in the past ten years, the Yankees have had only one winning season against the Angels, ONE!
Here’s another mind blowing statistic. In 1998, the New York Yankees finished the season with the most amount of wins in a season in franchise history (114). That year, the Yankees played .500 baseball or better against every single team that year, except one. You guessed it; that team was none other than the Angels.
Fast-forwarding to today, since that’s what really matters most, the Yankees just finished their final regular season series of the year against the Angels and once again, lost the series. The Yankees have been on a hot streak since the All-Star break; they were 27-11, having lost just two series out of eleven (both to Baltimore). They were gaining serious ground in the AL East and Wild Card race, which they needed really badly after an embarrassing first half. Then came the Angels… Going into the series, the Yankees were confident as they defeated the Angels right before the All-Star break 2-1 (Earlier, in the first series of the season, the Angels swept the Yankees 3-0). With a series victory here, they could have had their first season series victory over Anaheim since 2003. It didn’t turn out that way as the Yankees went on to lose the first game 6-7 in the 10th inning. The second game was only more embarrassing; the Yankees were rocked 18-9. At this point, the Yankees lost two games on the AL East lead (6 games back) and two games on the Wild Card lead (2.5 games back). They did manage to bounce back in game 3 to avoid the sweep 8-2. The series loss was the forth straight season series loss to the Angels.
The problem the Yankees face doesn’t seem to be that big because the Yankees and Angels aren’t in the same division, but fans should now be paying attention to these showdowns more than ever. Both teams have recently made the playoffs numerous times and by looking at their rosters, they can stay in playoff contention for a very long time. It will only take a few more defeats for people to start taking notice that the bad guy, self-embraced Evil Empire, has been beaten pretty badly by the good guy, Halos of the Heavens.
