Eight games into the 2017 season and the Angels are playing better than Angels fans could have hoped for. The Angels are sitting on top of the AL West with a 6–2 record and lead the division by a game and a half.

While the Angels have only played eight games, it’s hard not to be excited for the future of this season. Yes, it is a long season, the Angels have 154 more games to play and a lot can happen, but let’s not dwell too much on that right now.

The key word for the Angels this season is: “Resilience”. This is, in part, because of the last two games, against the Mariners on Sunday and last night against the Rangers. In both games, the Angels’ hope for pulling out a win looked rather dim. In fact, in last nights game against the Rangers, going into the bottom of the ninth, the Angels probability of winning was a meek 3.4%. Even crazier, in Sundays game against the Mariners, the Angels had a 0.2% change of winning, according to Fangraphs.

Sometimes, come from behind wins can be overlooked because of one player hitting a walk off home run to win the game, but these last two games for the Angels were not like that. In both games, the Angels came back as a team. This is the most important aspect of these last two games, hopefully building momentum and team chemistry that can last all season. So far, the Angels are hitting .452 (14-for-31) with 3 HR, 7 XBH, and .871 SLG in the 9th inning alone. This isn’t the team relying on Mike Trout or Albert Pujols to hit the team out of a deficit, sure they have been playing a huge role in the teams success, but there are still guys like Cliff Pennington and Carlos Perez making contributions as well. Even if the Angels pitching isn’t up to par, these types of numbers will keep the team in games.

If the Angels continue to hit well, and win as a team, it will build the confidence of each player and the team as a whole. A baseball team playing with confidence can be scary, and super fun to watch. While there is still a lot more baseball left to play, there is no reason to not be proud of what the Angels have done so far and have the ability to do in the coming months.