The Angels have finally recorded a home sweep after a long wait for us fans, displaying their dominance of the NL yet again. Walden finally recorded a save while Dan Haren won his first home game since April. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a 1-0 victory in favor of the Angels, it’s nice to see they still have it in them to pull in such close games.
We can all thank the pitching, and lady luck, for delivering a sweep unto this team. For a while there it seemed like sweeping a series wasn’t in the cards for this team, especially seeing as how they’ve always come up short when they were within sweeping distance. Some are less the Angels fault then others, namely the Dodgers series finale a few days back. This team has closed a lot of ground on the Rangers these past few weeks, and now sit within a games distance of first place in the division. The Angels haven’t pulled a big winning streak in the longest time, I can’t even remember when their last big streak was. It may have been a 5 or 6 gamer very early in the season, it doesn’t say much about this teams ability to stay hot if I have to plow my memory banks to remember their last streak. Seeing as how the Dodgers are rolling into town on Friday it wouldn’t be out of the question to see a 4, or 5, maybe even a 6 game winning streak in this teams near future. That’s in the future though, now’s the time to sit back and bask in the first home sweep of the season.
Game Notes
- How pathetic was that 4th inning? Torii Hunter gets thrown out at second trying to stretch out an error at first with Abreu following that up by being thrown out at second trying to stretch a single into a double. These guys are well past their prime, yet they still think they have the skills that have long since deteriorated. Abreu could have just misjudged the play, that’s a fair excuse for him, but no excuse for Hunter. I would have been surprised if he didn’t make those kind of plays a routine for him. Don’t get me wrong, I still think Hunter has the goods in terms of baserunning ability and speed, they just aren’t nearly as good as they used to be. I’m still holding you those 20 bags you promised us, it hasn’t been forgotten.
- This is the Dan Haren I was so used to watching early in the season. He was much more careful with his pitch selection, his control was a tad wild at times but overall he had a good handle on his pitches. Even when his team mishandled simple plays (I’m lookin at you Callaspo) he was able to shake it off and deliver his team to the promised land. I’m glad he was able to take the game deep and hand the ball to the reliable Scott Downs instead of giving the responsibility of a 1-0 game to the bullpen. I, much like the rest of the Angels fans, cannot trust the bullpen with such a delicate game, especially when Scioscia hands the ball to an untrustworthy reliever in such a tight situation.
- Thank goodness for this Nat’s terrible defense. Last night an error helped put the game away for the Angels, today’s costly error gave this team the game. I expected the Angels to knock Zimmermann off of his 10 quality start’s streak in grand fashion to come away with the win, yet the still found a way to keep his streak intact and pull a victory. No one had rose to the occasion like I had hoped, not Aybar nor Wells, especially not Kendrick and his run scoring GIDP. This wasn’t the Angels offense coming together to pull through a tough one, it was mostly the Nat’s brain-fart that cost them the game. Regardless, a win is a win that we’re all relieved the Angels we’re able to make happen.
Halo Hero
Danny hasn’t pitched a game this good in a long while, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Sometimes I wonder where this team would be without Haren here to save us from ourselves time and time again, probably far south of .500.
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