Playing Patience or Panic with 10 Troubling Early Season L.A. Angels Starts

With a 5-7 early-season record, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim sit smack dab in the middle of the most congested division in baseball.

The Angels have played four series thus far, winning two and losing two. No one in the American League West is above .500, and the Houston Astros actually hold first place at the moment. So there is no reason to panic about the team's sluggish start.

Of course, individually, not everything and everyone's start is so easily waved off. While much of what happens in April is statistical noise and small-sample-size dependent, there are some things that warn of continued trouble.

With that, here are 10 troubling outcomes from early in the Angels' season. Some just need a little patience to get past, like falling to 5-7 in a division where first place is a single game away. Others require pressing the panic button and fast!

Patience...

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Not every outcome in April is a perfect microcosm of one-sixth of the season. Here are five bad starts not to worry too much about.

1) .217 team batting average

The Angels are batting .217 as a team right now. That places them among the bottom five teams in the league. However, it's not a number to fret over. The team has walked 30 times and has players whose greatest strength is at the plate. This is largely the same crew who led all of baseball in runs scored a season ago. It is too early to think this will continue for long.

2) Albert Pujols' .286 OBP

Pujols is off to a slow start at the plate, but his on-base percentage has been dulled by a criminally low batting average to this point. He leads the team in walks and has a 1.00 strikeout-to-walk rate. Although he doesn't possess the power he used to and won't hit over .300 this season, his ability to get on base remains a useful tool.

3) Erick Aybar's two runs scored

Like Pujols, Erick Aybar is finding one of his usually productive stat columns quieted by a scuffling average. Aybar has just eight hits on the season and is batting .186. He has never been a huge on-base guy but is a career .276 hitter. He's only hit below .250 for a season once, and that came in 79 games in 2007.

Once the singles begin to fall, he'll have more stolen-base chances and find himself in scoring position more often. From there, the runs will come. There is no runs-scoring skill that Aybar suddenly lacks, and there is no way that he finishes with the fewest runs scored of all L.A.'s qualified hitters.

4) Jered Weaver's 6.61 ERA

Jered Weaver is no longer an ace, but he was still an effective player just last season. And three starts isn't enough to know for sure how much he has left in the tank. Weaver has yet to top 90 pitches in a game this season and walked zero batters in two of his three outings.

He's appeared economical and efficient at times while proving to be useful on the mound. The one start against the Royals has skewed his figures a bit. More on Weaver's future in a minute...

5) Zero home wins

This is the perfect example of why small-sample statistics can be misleading. Sure, Los Angeles is winless at home, but it has also had just one home series thus far on the year. And that was a sweep at the hands of the now 9-3 Kansas City Royals.

The record says nothing about how the team will perform at home moving forward.

Panic!

Brandon Wade/Associated Press

Not every slow start is bound to turn around with more time. Here are five troubling starts that should have fans and management worried.

1) Three total team steals

When this team was amazing on offense last year, it stole just 81 bases, 22nd in baseball. Now the team is without Howie Kendrick, and there are very few places where steals can even come from.

The low total isn't as alarming as the realization that this isn't going to change. Other than Mike Trout and Aybar, there is no one on the roster who can even be considered a threat to steal.

Collin Cowgill has one of those three steals (Trout has the other two). Cowgill had 12 steals combined in his four years entering this season.

2) Matt Joyce's .483 OPS

Joyce has a heavy lefty-righty split for his career. His struggles from one side of the plate are not new. The problem is his splits in 2015 are running reverse of what was expected. Suddenly, Joyce can't hit righties either!

With a career .814 OPS against right-handed pitchers and a career .577 OPS against lefties, Joyce was the prototypical left-handed hitter in need of a platoon partner. But this year, Joyce is 1-for-3 in his chances against a lefty on the mound and plain atrocious in his platoon "advantage."

If Joyce doesn't start hitting righties, he won't garner any playing time at all.

3) Chris Iannetta's 14 strikeouts

Iannetta has been bad at the plate so far this season. He leads the team in strikeouts even though he's received the seventh-most at-bats. Iannetta has never been known for his defense or glove behind the plate. He is mostly an offense-oriented catcher.

Showing an inability to put the ball in play, he is removing his most useful asset without even allowing for luck to play a part. If he was still batting 4-for-34 on the year but with just a couple Ks, the BABIP gods would eventually shine upon him. Instead, he may be proving he doesn't warrant starter's at-bats.

4) C.J. Cron's four hits

Cron is in just his second season and only played in half of the Angels' games last season anyway. He is not a completed project nor a known quantity yet. A slow start to 2015 would not normally be a season killer for a player in that situation. However, Cron's most alarming stat is perhaps not the four hits but the eight games played.

At this early stage, without Josh Hamilton even around to siphon at-bats from folks, Cron is already losing playing time, having sat one third of the team's season. When other players move in to start at designated hitter, Cron hits the bench.

With such a nice rookie year, this season was a possible coming-out party. Now, it is likely Cron is relegated to a part-time role for the foreseeable future.

5) Jered Weaver's 4.96 K/9

There is no problem with Weaver being 0-2; there is nothing wrong with his high ERA and WHIP with the calendar still in April. Those aren't reasons to panic. However, the veteran starter is pitching to contact more than ever and striking out so few batters that he's making things incredibly difficult on himself.

His fastball is so slow, it is kind to still refer to it as a "fastball" at all. The strikeouts are never going to come back for a pitcher that wasn't hugely reliant on Ks at the peak of his powers.

For him to win games now, Weaver will need to refine his repertoire. It will take more savvy than he's shown this month.