ANAHEIM, Calif. – These are the Los Angeles Angels, four errors' and seven walks' worth on Wednesday night, a 19-loss August and 18-win September in, stuff strewn everywhere, a teenager's room as much as a baseball team, but with a nice Mike Trout poster on the wall, signed and everything.

They'd tell you it's better than it looks, that they know exactly where everything is, and maybe that's true, and maybe chaos just suits them.

They'd won for a good decade like that once, when the scattered parts (set just so) could – from a distance, viewed from a tilted head and half-shuttered eyes – be construed as a championship team. It didn't always work out, in fact it worked out only once, but the goofy angles, frantic pace and steady results made for entertaining relevancy.

This isn't that except for the past month, the one truly competent month in six for the Angels, which turns out to be plenty in the American League West.

View photos Mike Trout and the Angels have done just enough to give themselves a shot at winning the AL West. (Getty Images) More

You wouldn't want to judge them on a single game, and certainly not at the end of seven wins in a row, or 18 wins in 26. From a dour and jangly season, after all, they'd produced this in the end: a shot to win the division, a shot at the wild-card, a redemptive weekend in Texas ahead, a little more baseball out there.

They have four games against the Rangers starting Thursday night. Win them all and they either win the division, or, at worst, secure the second wild-card. Play a game like they did Wednesday night against the Oakland A's – an 8-7 loser that was of their own doing – and they'll have to forget the Rangers, note the Houston Astros score and aim for three hours of make-it, take-it baseball.

They are, like the rest, imperfect. That's the game, of course. They'd put themselves 7 1/2 out with a month to go, then played themselves into a plane flight that would amount to more than an exercise in end-of-shift clock-punching. Their true selves are in there somewhere, probably this side of those four errors that led to seven unearned runs Wednesday night (and the seven walks that stoked the defensive dumpster blaze), and the other side of 10 consecutive one-run wins before they left Trout on third base in the ninth inning while the rally monkey danced and the people with it.

"I've been saying it all week," Trout said, "we've got to win every game."

The Angels start over in Texas, where they have won five of six games, Andrew Heaney against Derek Holland in game one, the Rangers (and Astros) having contributed their own chaos to the only division that remains unsettled. It's a lot to ask, four wins in four days, way too much to think about even, and that's where Mike Scioscia winces and informs, "We are thinking about the first pitch of tomorrow's game."

From behind Scioscia, a voice advised, "Guys, we have an 8:35 bus, so…"

Scioscia rose from his chair. The room cleared.

View photos Albert Pujols and the Angels missed an opportunity with their 8-7 loss to the A's. (Getty Images) More

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