Look, what do you want? The Angels lost. It happens. Turns out that playing good teams on the road isn’t very easy to do. Who knew?
Losing stinks and the timing of this little lull for the Halos stinks to. We all want the Angels to be firing on all cylinders as they prepare to host the Texas Rangers, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
The funny thing is that the lineup isn’t producing though it doesn’t seem like anyone in particular is struggling mightily. Trout, Trumbo and Pujols all played well this series, which is usually more than enough for the Halos to find great success. I guess the only lesson here is that baseball is hard.
Game Notes
- At first glance, it was odd to see Ernesto Frieri pitch in this game, especially with the bullpen being so taxed recently, but I actually applaud the move. Ernasty was awful in his last outing and had no command whatsoever. Scioscia did the smart thing and got him back out on the mound in live action but low stakes. It gave Frieri the chance to work on his wayward command and also rebuild his confidence, assuming he even needed it as Ernesto seems rather self-assured and fully cognizant of the fact that he is going to have nights where he just doesn’t have it. Either way, he got it out of his system and looked like his dominant self and should be good to go against Texas.
- This start from Jerome Williams might have been the final nail in the coffin. He has not looked sharp at all since coming off the DL and really since he had the start against the Dodgers implode on him when Scioscia tried to stretch him through the eighth inning. I don’t know that he’ll even necessarily be the guy who loses his rotation spot, but it seems pretty clear now that he is more part of the problem than the solution, thus, I believe, forcing Dipoto to go out and acquire another starting pitcher.
- All of the sudden, the Angels can’t stop whiffing. Whenever I see this from this team (and really most Scioscia-era Angel squads) I tend to tip my hat to the opposing pitcher more than lambast the hitters. The Halos just don’t strikeout much, they have the fourth-lowest strikeout rate in the AL, so when they whiff 10 times in back-to-back nights, that tells me that they ran into a buzzsaw of facing two pitchers who were on top of their game at the time.
Halo A-Hole
Sorry, Jerome, but it looks like the clock is just about to strike midnight on your Cinderella story.
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