Angels' troubles begin with their starting pitchers

The Angels are in Boston for a three-game series against the Red Sox, the first of two meetings in the next 10 days between two of the biggest -- and most expensive -- disappointments of the 2012 season.

While the Red Sox's underachievement this season can be tied to injuries and an apparently sour team chemistry carried over from last year's late season collapse, the Angels' problems have arisen from the very foundation of the team -- its pitching staff, the starting rotation in particular.

After signing left-hander C.J. Wilson as a free agent last winter, the Angels were expected to have one of the best rotations in baseball, and for most of the season's first half it played out that way despite the individual struggles of right-handers Dan Haren and Ervin Santana. Jered Weaver was the Cy Young frontrunner and Wilson was everything the Angels could have hoped for in the first three months of the season.

But everything has turned sour since June 28. At that point, a three-game winning streak had pushed the Angels to a season-high 10 games over .500 (43-33). The rotation had combined for a 3.49 ERA with 47 quality starts (at least six innings, three earned runs or fewer) in the first 76 games of the season.

In 46 games since then, however, the ERA of the Angels' starters has been a debilitating 5.71 with only 19 quality starts. For the season, the Angels are 39-20 when their starting pitcher retires at least one batter in the seventh inning -- but they have done that just 18 times in the last 46 games, averaging less than six innings per start in that time.

Even the addition of right-hander Zack Greinke has failed to turn things around. The 2009 Cy Young Award winner was by most measures the best player to change teams at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. But he is 1-2 with a 6.19 ERA in five starts with the Angels and has allowed at least four runs in four consecutive starts for the first time in his career.

"I know how he (Greinke) feels, being traded, and he probably feels like everyone expects him to go out and throw eight scoreless innings every game," said Haren, acquired by the Angels at the trade deadline in 2010. "With my track record, having a year like I'm having, it was out of the ordinary, and we weren't expecting that. C.J. was dealing for most of the year; he's kind of hit a bump in the road.

"Jered's been the one consistent one, and I don't know where we'd be without him, but he can't pitch every game. We've got to hold up our end."

Even Weaver has started to crack. Weaver lost just once in his first 20 starts this season and not at all at Angel Stadium. But he has lost his last two starts, both at home, and Friday's collapse among the worst starts of his career -- he allowed a career-high nine runs and failed to retire a batter in the fourth inning.

A workhorse for most of his career, Haren has begun to show that wear and tear this season and will be skipped in the rotation this week in order to work on a "release-point issue" he thinks he discovered while watching video.

The only positive in the rotation at this point -- surprisingly -- is Santana, who was dreadful for long stretches of the season and on the verge of being dropped from the rotation at times. Only recently has he begun to turn it around when, according to Angels manager Mike Scioscia, he corrected a release-point issue of his own that was flattening out his slider and robbing him of fastball command.

These are not the problems the Angels expected to have with time running out in the playoff race.

"I think everyone's a little frustrated we're not playing to our capabilities," Weaver said. "Our starting staff hasn't been doing a great job, and that's usually what our team is based on, is starting pitching.

"From a pitching standpoint, we haven't held up our end of the bargain, so we need to figure something out."