Angels gearing up to see Josh Hamilton this weekend vs. Rangers
The narrative power of this weekend's series pitting the Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers against each other at Globe Life Park in Arlington is strong.
Not only are the Halos trying to put the recent resignation of general manager Jerry Dipoto (and all its subsequent fallout) behind them, but they will also face off against Josh Hamilton, recently reinstated by the Rangers from the disabled list. Josh will presumably be in the lineup this weekend against his former Angel teammates, and they're definitely aware of the situation.
As quoted by MLB.com's David Adler, several members of the Angels are mostly trying to view Hamilton as just another player on the opposing team. Said Mike Trout: "Obviously we bonded here and had a good friendship. He was a great guy, just hopefully he doesn't get hits against us."
C.J. Wilson, who played with Hamilton both in Texas and then in Anaheim, fired off a typically entertaining quote about what he might do if Hamilton is in the lineup on Sunday: "When you have a personal friendship with somebody, there's that added little gamesmanship to it. So I'll probably stare at him and pretend like I'm gonna throw him all fastballs, but I'm not. There's a lot of history of friendship there, and a lot of Xbox games and whatnot. But he's just another guy with a bat on the other team that I'm trying to strike out."
As for manager Mike Scioscia, his comments were more aligned with the pointed remarks made by Angels owner Arte Moreno during the tense days before Moreno traded Hamilton back to the Rangers earlier in the season: "I'm hoping he'll take an opportunity to thank the teammates that supported him. And again, I really think that he should reach out to Arte and let Arte know that maybe some of the things he did weren't what he signed up to do."
There's definitely no shortage of emotions at work for this weekend's matchup...
