Game Rewind: The Third Musketeer? – Angels 6, Rays 0

And Santana makes three… or at least the Angels hope.  On the heels of his electric performance tonight against the Rays, the Angels might may have finally solved the riddle of who their third reliable starting pitcher will be.

For weeks Santana has seemed to be on the verge of breaking through but just couldn’t put it all together until tonight.  The strikeouts had been there all along, but walks and problems with the long ball had plagued him since his latest return from the disabled list.  But that long lost fastball command was back with a vengeance, allowing him to make minced meat of highly potent Tampa Bay line-up.  Let’s just hope it is here to say.

Ervin has hinted at recovering his ace form a few times already this season.  Less than a month ago he limited Oakland to one run through eight innings and also came one out away from a shutout a little over a month before that.  Everything in between was just frustration mounted upon frustration.  So is this just a monthly thing that Santana is going to tease us all with or has he finally solved his problems?

It can be dangerous to read too much from one game, but the fact that Santana was able to dispatch the Rays in a complete game using only 97 pitches speaks strongly to just how stellar his command was.  The Rays are hardly the most patient team in the game, but even they aren’t going to continuously swing at pitches early in the count if they aren’t constantly around the strike zone.  More importantly, Santana’s mistakes within the strike zone were few and far between.  He certainly allowed a handful of well struck balls, but for the most part found their way into someone’s glove.  Hey, sometimes you need to be both lucky and good.  Now all the Angels have to do is sit back to see if Ervin can keep the skill portion intact for the rest of the season

Good News:

• REG-GIE!  REG-GIE!  It’s official, now every single Angel is making contributions.  Willits’s two-run single broke the scoreless tie and got an otherwise untouchable David Price off his game.
• Let’s hope the RBI single Chone Figgins snaps him out of his funk.  He did whiff twice in the game, but at least that well struck, clutch single provides some hope.
• How sick was that catch by Erick Aybar in the ninth?  Let the Aybar Gold Glove campaign officially begin.

Bad News:

• You just know that Maicer Izturis is going to turn out to be hurt after getting drilled in the elbow.  It just seems to be his fate that every time he really starts establishing himself in his career that he winds up missing a long stretch of time.  Hopefully that isn’t the case this time, but I fear that it is.
• Isn’t it just like Scioscia to start Jeff Mathis instead of Mike Napoli on Napoli bobblehead night?  Then again you can’t really argue with the results (2-3, 1 R, 3 RBI for Mathis).

Halo Hero:

• Ervin Santana

After a 3-hit shutout of the defending American League champion, there is no question who the player of the game is.