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This is the first blog of my Angels fan group, if you're an Angel fan and want to join sign-up here, Group

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The Angels should win the AL West fairly easily.  The biggest challenge is Texas and that very potent offense, but pitching will (as usual) be what holds them back.  Oakland has no offense, and their pitching is young and inexperienced.  The Mariners, just blow.

The Angels pitching staff is one of the best in the league.  The big 3 of Lackey, Santana, and Saunders would make any rotation an instant success.  Jered Weaver is a great option as a #4, if he can find the talent he flashed in his rookie season this rotation would become lights out.  The #5 is up for grabs, but I have a feeling Adenhart will win it over Mosely.  So here's how I see the pitching order looking like on opening day.

#1- John Lackey

#2- Ervin Santana

#3- Joe Saunders

#4- Jered Weaver

#5- Nick Adenhart

Great rotation, all young and talented.

The Bull-pen is as good as anyones, K-Rod or no K-Rod.  They have 2 players who are capable of filling K-Rods shoes, Brian Fuentes and Jose Arredondo.  I'd love to see Arredondo win the job, he is young talented and the future of the position.  Fuentes isn't bad though, he can make hitters look stupid.  The Combo of Arredondo/Fuentes/Shields makes this a 6 inning game.  I love That they resigned Darren Oliver, he is a solidpitcher who could lighten the load of the big 3 in the pen.  Over all this bull-pen is looking solid all around, Expect Bulger, Loux and Jepsen to be solid contributers as well.

The Line-up is looking good.  However I do see a weakness.  NaPoli's injury means he'll have to DH, which means Jeff Mathis will be the starting ctacher.  Mathis is solid behind the plate, but he's an inept hitter who hit just .194 last season.  NaPoli DHing also puts a question mark on Juan Rivera's at-bats, of course we could always move him to first.  Than there's always a possibility that the Angels could call up a guy like Congo or give Budde a shot though it's unlikely.

The line-up as a whole however seems great.  Hopefully Figgins, Kendrick, Vlad, Aybar, and NaPoli can fight off the injury bug.  The Angels have a ton of potential in this line-up, if they can stay healthy and can find some consistency (both kind of go together) than this line-up could be great.

I have 2 potential issues to keep an eye on.

#1- A deteriorating Vlad

We all saw it last year, this has been a highly disturbing trend the past couple years.  Hopefully he can break free of it and return to Mvp form.

He is the most important Angel, if he struggles than expect a very nerve wrecking season of the Angels trying to compensate for not having the consistent Vlad to anchor their line-up.

#2- Injuries

This affects them more than most teams.  They had several key players go down for extended amounts of time.

NaPoli hit 20 HR, but was only able to play in 79 games, Kendrick was hitting .500 before he got injured and was never the same the rest off the season, Erick Aybar went down twice and didn't return for a monthe both times, and of course Lackey Missed 8-9 starts last season.  The Angels were very injury prone last season, this was just scratching the surface, just something to keep an eye on.

Hope you enjoyed the blog.  And all you Angel fans JOIN.