Angels Schadenfreude Central

They lost 12 of their first 18 games after being given the potential-best-team-in-baseball kiss of death by Buster Olney, and held a players' only meeting this morning after Torii Hunter indirectly called out Mike Scioscia following last night's loss. Scioscia is under contract through 2018, thanks to the decision several years back to give him a 10-year extension, which was then -- and still is -- the longest managerial contract in baseball, which means that if he does somehow lose the room, Arte Moreno is either going to have to live with it, or pay out the nose to buy out what is more than a half-decade remaining on Scioscia's current deal.

They began the day 8½ games out of first place, a mark which they didn't slip to until the penultimate game of the 2011 regular season.

They finally got their hands on a one-run lead going into the ninth inning today, and ...

I don't hate the Angels. I think "hate" is an unnecessarily strong verb given that we are, at the end of the day, talking about baseball. I don't like the Angels, but I don't hate them, and I'm not deriving pleasure from this because of a deep-seated hatred for the Angels. I'm deriving pleasure from this because I respect the Angels' talent and harbor concern over what they were -- and, for that matter, still are -- capable of doing in terms of wresting the divisional balance of power away from the Rangers, and because they are, at the end of the day, still the greatest divisional threat to the Rangers in the 2012 calendar year. That's why I'm enjoying this. It makes life easier for Texas.

That, for me at least, is what is at the core of all of this. If you enjoy this because they committed the GDP of a small country to Albert Pujols and are getting a negative ROI, or because you actually do "hate" C.J. Wilson, or you think Scioscia has brought all of this down upon himself because he was so crappy at handling Mike Napoli, then more power to you.

It's all schadenfreude at the end of the day, anyway.