Coming into this series, the story was all about Trout and Harper. Harper and Trout! Trouper and Hart! Hout and Trarper! Guess what? Neither of them really played a factor in this game. Heck, they didn’t even have the common decency to fight to the death to prove who was the superior player. Pfft, amateurs.
Run Expectancy Rundown
Look at Raul Ibanez doing it almost by himself. And he only needed one plate appearance to do it. Meanwhile, Garrett Richards reminded us all of how much DH-less baseball sucks.
Jayson Werth walked and HBP’d his way to a nice performance. Also, not to Werth, when a guy hits you with an 0-2 pitch to load the bases with no outs in a close game, he didn’t do it on purpose. Take your testosterone and stow it. I am also legally obligated to mention that Mike Trout beat Bryce Harper in RE24 in this game. Not that we should care.
Starting Pitcher Scores
Richards only allowed one hit but struggled with the walks. Most of the damage came in one inning and was actually the fault of some poorly rubbed down baseballs, if you choose to believe Garrett’s excuse. Tanner Roark was much more effective than one would’ve expected. Or maybe that was just because the Angels were running out a patchwork lineup. Could be both.
Bullpen Battle
The Angels registered a collective shutdown, and that was despite Ernesto Frieri surrendering another damn homer, just to make things interesting. Tyler Clippard, with the help of some poor fielding behind him, blew this game pretty hard for the Nats.
Game Flow
Even after the Angels gave up the first run to the Nats, their win expectancy never reached a dire level. Raul Ibanez prevented that from happening and with just one swing vaulted them almost all the way up to mortal locks to win the game. Thanks, Raul!
Halo Hero
Now if we could just get Ibanez to hit like this before the game is on the line, the Angel lineup would actually be in business.
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