The playoffs are over a month away, but this game sure felt like the post-season. It is a complete cliche, but this game very much had a playoff atmosphere. Every play seemed to be of the utmost importance. The players certainly appeared to be taking it more seriously. Heck, even the notoriously sparse A’s fans came out with one of their bigger and more raucous showings of the year. Even with the A’s drawing first blood, I can’t wait for the next nine games.
Run Expectancy Rundown
The most recent Josh Hamilton resurgence continues and Mike Trout seems to be busting out of his slump just in time as well. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to trouble Sonny Gray. The big drain on their offense turned out to be Kole Calhoun, largely due to him lining into a double play courtesy of a well positioned Andy Parrino. Chris Iannetta failing to come through in his big moment didn’t help either.
Coco Crisp has 116 career homers, 10 of them have been against the Angels. Argh. Stephen Vogt has 13 career homers, three of them have come against the Angels. Double argh. It sucks to keep all the big bats in check and get killed by the likes of Vogt, Callaspo and Fuld.
Starting Pitcher Scores
Hector Santiago once again improved his ERA, but once again didn’t look very good in doing it. He might have the best ERA in the active rotation now, but he’s killing the bullpen with his inefficiency. He hasn’t recorded more than 18 outs in a start since the first time he faced the A’s on April 14th. The Angels can take some solace in being the first team to have a multi-homer game against Sonny Gray in his young career. However, they didn’t really get much else going against him.
Bullpen Battle
Jason Grilli only really threw one bad pitch, but it proved to be incredibly costly. Cory Rasmus showed he can do more than mop-up duty. Cam Bedrosian earned himself a trip back to Salt Lake. Scioscia nearly earned himself goat horns had that Vogt homer come back to haunt the Angels. As for the A’s, Sean Doolittle tried his hardest to blow the game, but the Angels weren’t up to the task of finishing him off. On the bright side, they made him throw a lot of pitches.
Game Flow
The Angels certainly had their chance to take control of the game, but that Calhoun doubleplay really took the wind out of their sales and their win probability. I’m actually quite surprised that the Angels didn’t have a bigger spike in win expectancy after Cowgill walked to load the bases. I guess it just looked more tense than it really was.
Halo A-Hole
It was only one bad pitch, but let’s try and not let Sam freaking Fuld be the gut that beats you, OK?
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