Boxscore Breakdown #159: Saving Santiago – Angels 5, Athletics 4

And with one solid start, the entire Angels fan base breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Yes, Hector Santiago managed to fix himself just in time to give the Angels some hope that they might have more than one useful starting pitcher in the ALDS. Santiago was coming off a disastrous start in which he tried to use his sinker more and pitch to contact in the name of pitch efficiency. That clearly didn’t work, so he reverted back to his old approach and found his old success. Ironically, he was efficient with his pitches too, at least by his standards..

Knowing that he can still go bad at the drop of a hat, the Halos might still avoid using him as a starter in the postseason, but at least it is an option now. That’s something that wasn’t necessarily the case five days.

Run Expectancy Rundown
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1AvvZt0iGXp4W5ZPTt6rn3tknxqX5STYnQU0TUCJ0s1E/pubchart” query=”oid=1976391661&format=interactive” width=”623″ height=”318″ /] Just a huge day for Howie Kendrick as he broke the game open with two RBI hits. He also added a weird head tickle hand signal to the “come together” hand signal all the other Angels already do. Like we needed another hand signal. Nobody else did anything of significance, but Mike Trout did swipe another bag before exiting early due to a stomach illness.

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1AvvZt0iGXp4W5ZPTt6rn3tknxqX5STYnQU0TUCJ0s1E/pubchart” query=”oid=1154832181&format=interactive” width=”620″ height=”341″ /] Josh Reddick was a menace again and Nick Punto had an RBI triple, which is a thing that happened. The funniest part of the A’s day is how all of their pinch-hitters bottomed out in RE24. I guess that whole exploiting platoon splits thing doesn’t always work.

Starting Pitcher Scores
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1AvvZt0iGXp4W5ZPTt6rn3tknxqX5STYnQU0TUCJ0s1E/pubchart” query=”oid=161400381&format=interactive” width=”584″ height=”293″ /] We already talked about the promising work of Santiago, but what was more promising is that the Angels actually kind of got to Jon Lester, tagging him for three double and eight hits. It helped that the Oakland defense completely let him down, but with the A’s as a prospective ALDS opponent, showing that they can get to Lester, even with a stripped down lineup, is a nice confidence boost.

Bullpen Battle
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1AvvZt0iGXp4W5ZPTt6rn3tknxqX5STYnQU0TUCJ0s1E/pubchart” query=”oid=1141913419&format=interactive” width=”620″ height=”315″ /] Things got a little hairy for the bullpen as the A’s jumped on Mike Morin‘s fastball early in the count, thus preventing him from busting out that gorgeous changeup. Joe Thatcher then made matters worse, like he do. Fortunately, Jason Grilli was able to get another clutch strikeout to save the day. Everyone then had a small panic when Fernando Salas pitched the eighth inning instead of Smith or Jepsen, who both needed rest.

The A’s bullpen had an entirely uneventful evening.

Game Flow
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1AvvZt0iGXp4W5ZPTt6rn3tknxqX5STYnQU0TUCJ0s1E/pubchart” query=”oid=451609002&format=interactive” width=”619″ height=”316″ /] It was a nice safe experience for the Halos in the first half of the game, but things got pretty hairy in the seventh inning. Once they survived that, it was smooth sailing.

Halo Hero

Good work, Hector! I suppose you can be on the ALDS roster after all.