You Might Have A Bad Offense When....

Your staff can toss a no-hitter (on a technicality) and lose.

No one's ever questioned whether the Angels had enough arms to hang in contention for the A.L. crown but whatever doubts we had about their offense were answered Saturday night when Jered Weaver and Jose Arredendo combined for an 8-inning no-hitter, but still lost 1-0 to the Dodgers thanks to errors from Weaver and Jeff Mathis. Even more baffaling is that the Angels managed just one run in the series, and yet still did not get swept, which more speaks to the lack of offense for both L.A. teams.

The Angels' depth in pitching have been a fixture since their out-of-nowhere world championship in 2002. But as seen in 2004, '05 and last October, the Angels do not have enough timely hitting (or sometimes any for that matter) to be a legitimate title contender. On paper, it doesn't make sense with power hitters like Vladimir Guerrero, Garret Anderson and Torii Hunter ina ddition to good contact hitters like Chone Figgins, Howie Kendrick and Gary Matthews Jr. The problem as demonstrated in their last 3 postseason appearences, Guerrero and Figgins vanish when the calendar turns over to number 10.

One of the key factors that ultimately led to Bill Stoneman's ouster in Anaheim was the fact that every year at the trade deadline he was reluctant to tap into the Angels' abundant farm system to trade for a big bat. Given the offensive embarrasment that occured in Chavez Ravine, I wonder if the new regime will follow suit.