The first stunner came when Oakland, the team the Angels are chasing in the American League West, acquired Boston ace Jon Lester for left fielder and cleanup batter Yoenis Cespedes, giving the Athletics a formidable rotation that includes Sonny Gray, Jeff Samardzija and Scott Kazmir.
The next shocker came in the final hour before Thursday’s 1 p.m. PDT non-waiver trade deadline, when pitching-rich Detroit acquired Tampa Bay ace David Price, boosting a rotation that, with Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, now boasts the last three AL Cy Young Award winners.
All of which prompted an odd reaction in the Angels clubhouse, where the hill to climb to win the AL West and AL Championship Series had grown steeper.
“I love it,” reliever Jason Grilli said before the Angels’ game against the Baltimore Orioles in Camden Yards. “I can’t wait to play those guys, because I think, trade or no trade, we’re pretty good too. I’m confident in what we have. The guys in this room are confident in what we have. So let’s go get it.”
When General Manager Jerry Dipoto heard about the Lester trade, his reaction was like that of most baseball fans.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s Jon Lester. He’s a stud. We’ve seen him on the postseason stage before. He’s been great. A good move for the A’s.”
But that didn’t inspire Dipoto into a last-minute run at Price or Philadelphia ace Cole Hamels, both thought to be out of reach for an Angels system lacking in high-end prospects. Asked if he was close to making any kind of trade Thursday, Dipoto said, “Not at all.”
The Angels already addressed their most glaring need, upgrading a beleaguered bullpen with the late June and mid-July acquisitions of Grilli, left-hander Joe Thatcher and closer Huston Street.
“I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t a little surprised at the volume of moves and their magnificence,” Dipoto said. “A lot of good teams got better. But we didn’t sit on the sidelines and not take part. We made our moves earlier in the month and in late June.”
The Angels hope to boost their rotation with the return of left-hander C.J. Wilson, who has been sidelined since July 10 by a sprained right ankle and is expected to be activated for Saturday’s game at Tampa Bay.
“When C.J. is right, he’s a very legitimate top-half-of-the-rotation guy,” Dipoto said. “When we can line up C.J. with Jered Weaver, Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker and Hector Santiago, we’re very comfortable with that group. Obviously, C.J. is a key ingredient for us.”
But he is not Lester, a left-hander who went 10-7 with a 2.52 earned-run average in 21 starts for the Red Sox, striking out 149 and walking 32 in 143 innings.
Lester, 30, is 6-4 with a 2.11 ERA in 13 career postseason games. He is 4-2 with a 4.44 ERA in eight regular-season starts against the Angels, and 1-1 with a 1.35 ERA in three playoff starts against them in 2008 and ’09.
“He makes their pitching staff that much better,” Angels center fielder Mike Trout said. “We always have a tough battle when we face Lester, and now he’s in our division. But when we’re rolling, going good, we can beat anybody. That’s our mentality.”
The Angels began Thursday 2 1/2 games behind the Athletics, and they play Oakland 10 more times, so they’re likely to see plenty of Lester over the final two months. But Manager Mike Scioscia didn’t necessarily feel the trade changed the dynamic of the division race.
“They were good yesterday, and they’re good today — we knew that,” Scioscia said of the A’s. “We have a really good team. Our focus has to be on us continuing to play at a high level and continuing to improve.
“Right now, our offense is not firing on all cylinders, but we’re pitching well and we’re playing good defense. We really like our team.”
On the plus side for the Angels, they may actually score a runner from second base on a hit to left field against the Athletics.
Cespedes threw out two runners at the plate in the second inning of an 11-3 win over the Angels in Oakland on May 31, and in a June 10 game in Anaheim, he airmailed a 300-foot throw from the corner — Scioscia called it a “guided missile” — to nail Howie Kendrick at the plate.
“Cespedes has definitely done some damage against us defensively,” Angels catcher Hank Conger said.
The Angels, however, will play the Red Sox seven times this month, including a four-game series Aug. 18 to 21 in Fenway Park, where the Green Monster in left field is only 315 feet away from home plate.
“We were talking about that in the kitchen today,” Trout said. “When he plays left field in Boston, he’s probably going to be throwing people out on singles.”
Follow Mike DiGiovanna on Twitter @MikeDiGiovanna
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
