Halos use in-house solutions to turn season around

	Mike Napoli (left) has given the Angels an unexpected boost behind the plate while John Lackey has developed into an ace. Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images

Back in May, when the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim were 17-28 and miserable losers of 18 of their last 23, some angry cherubs demanded that general manager Bill Stoneman do something, anything, to save the season. The rest of the seraphim begged him not to panic by trashing the future to salvage the present.

Not to make a hero of Stoneman, but he has done right by all of them.

Since plummeting to the depths of the American League West, the Angels have played exactly one third of a season at a .630 pace (34-20) and moved into a first-place tie with Oakland on Monday. In July the team is 16-4.

Overall, the Angels' record is a modest 51-48, their lead over third-place Texas is half a game and only three games over last-place Seattle. So in a sense, all the Angels have achieved after their false start is a restart. After finishing up this week's road trip through Tampa Bay and Boston, the team will play seven gut-check games against the rival A's and Rangers.

Even so, the Angels already have something to celebrate -- they looked deep within themselves and made their comeback without having to pry help from any other organization. Not a single outsider has been added to the roster since pitcher Jason Bulger arrived from Arizona on Feb. 28 (admittedly, in what might have been an ill-advised trade of second-base prospect Alberto Callaspo). Instead, Stoneman and manager Mike Scioscia tinkered with what they had.

The most phenomenal player has been Jered Weaver. This week people have been wondering why Weaver, 7-0 with a 1.15 ERA and 40 strikeouts in his first seven games, has not gotten the love rained o'er the last pitcher to begin a career so well, Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's pretty simple, really: You aren't going to match the charismatic Valenzuela's fairy-tale ride from Navojoa, Mexico, with a Scott Boras-driven commute from Long Beach State -- not even with the twist of knocking your older brother, Jeff, out of your team's starting rotation.

Nevertheless, by turning a near automatic loss in the starting rotation -- the Angels dropped 11 of 16 games that Jeff Weaver started -- into a near automatic victory, Stoneman probably solved a good 15-20 percent of the Angels' problems (although it would have been nice if Stoneman hadn't interrupted the young Weaver's hot streak for three weeks with a roster-juggling demotion).