Game Talk – 6/2/09: Northbound and Down – Angels @ Blue Jays

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (25-24) @ Toronto Blue Jays (29-24)

Starters: LAA – Joe Saunders (6-3, 3.26 ERA)  TOR – Roy Halladay (8-1, 2.63 ERA)

Game Info: 4:07 PM PT TV-Fox Sports West, Radio-KLAA 830 AM, KFWB, KWKW 1330 AM

The Angels are headed off to the land of hockey pucks and maple syrup (a surprisingly good breakfast if you are into vulcanized rubber, and who isn’t?).

Aside from their thrilling comeback on Sunday, the Angels are limping their way north to face the Blue Jays and Doc Halladay.  You might recall that the last times the Halos faced Halladay things went rather poorly, like 13-1 poorly.  Of course, the Angels won’t be countering the Toronto ace with a hump like Anthony Ortega this time.  Toronto will have a much more difficult match-up in the form of Joe Saunders.

Questions of the Night:

• Can the Angels get any offense or will they lose out on the exchange rate?  Halladay has always been an Angel killer and the Halos bats aren’t exactly scorching hot right now.  Saunders might have to conjure up the same kind of performance he turned in when he faced Zach Greinke earlier this year.
• Why does Mike Scioscia make his line-ups out in the dark?  For some godforsaken reason Maicer Izturis is not only in the line-up, but batting… wait for it… sixth.  In front of Mike Napoli (who is slumping but recently homered).  Not only that but Juan Rivera, he of the 13 hits in the last 7 games, is sitting in favor of Gary Matthews.
• Is this Howie Kendrick’s last shot?  The writing is on the wall for Truck.  He got lifted for a pinch-hitter on Sunday and is now entering his third month of terrible productivity.  That isn’t a slump, my friends, that’s just being bad.  Sosh is losing patience for him and will have to make a permanent switch at secondbase if he doesn’t start showing some signs of life in the immediate future.