The Angels unintentionally woke up a sleeping offensive giant in Boston, dropping two of three games against the Red Sox for their first series loss since being swept in San Francisco three weeks ago. Prior to their 19-run weekend, the Red Sox lineup has struggled for much of the season, hanging out with the Angels near the bottom of many AL leader boards. But Mike Napoli carried the Boston offense, continuing his annual tradition of making the Angels feel stupid.
The Halo offense has been disappointing too, so the 12-run outburst on Friday was temporarily encouraging and easy to draw grand conclusions from. The offense is back, everyone! Rick Porcello is a real pitcher and he’s pretty decent! And then the Angel bats were baffled by former comedian Steven Wright and Wade Miley in back-to-back games. The offense isn’t improving. If C.J. Wilson and Hector Santiago struggle even a little, like they did this weekend, the team is screwed.
Series Takeaways:
1) Say “Uncle”
Mike Napoli, from the Angels’ perspective, has become the “stop hitting yourself” bully on the playground, but rather than steal lunch money he gives ERAs atomic wedgies. Napoli went 5-for-8 in the series with four homers and a double; three of those homers gave the Sox the lead. Of course, Napoli hasn’t been particularly good this year either. Even with the monster series, he is still posting a career-low .302 wOBA entering Sunday. Nothing a dose of Angel pitching can’t fix. In 47 career games against the Angels — it feels like a lot more — Napoli has 18 home runs. If you extrapolate those homers to 162 games, Napoli is on a 62 home run pace.
I doubt Napoli gets extra motivated when he faces the Angels, and even if he does that wouldn’t necessarily translate into better performance. It’s probably a fluke made all the more frustrating after the infamous Vernon Wells trade before the 2011 season. But let’s say Napoli does have the ability to turn it on against his former club…it’s hard to blame him. The Angels did him dirty in the first place when they didn’t view a catcher that hits homers and draws walks as an asset. It was the franchise’s failure that they didn’t properly use Napoli, from Mike Scioscia often playing Jeff Freaking Mathis ahead of Napoli to the front office trading Napoli for 25 cents on the dollar.
I have no idea how or why Napoli has done this to the Angels for going on five seasons now, but I very much want him to stop.
2) #FreeBandy?
The Carlos Perez honeymoon might be over. On Saturday, Perez struck out twice and finally drew his first walk of the season. He bought himself weeks of good will with his walk-off homer against the Mariners in his MLB debut, but otherwise he just hasn’t been very good. In ten games, Perez owns a .243 OBP and 63 wRC+; Chris Iannetta, who we all know was terrible for weeks before he turned it on the last few games, owns a 59 wRC+ through Saturday. It is way too early to start wringing hands over Perez’ performance given that he’s only 24 and ten games into his major league career. Perez was never going to prop up the Angels’ catching situation by himself — that is dependent on Iannetta continuing his surge and giving the Angels another reliable bat.
3) Aybar the Table Setter
Erick Aybar is not an ideal leadoff hitter, but since moving to that slot he has paid some dividends. Normally, I would rail against placing a guy with a career .318 OBP at the top of a lineup, but what the hell else are the Angels going to do? Deck chairs on the Titanic and such. Kole Calhoun is a great choice to lead off, but then nobody in the middle of the lineup has much of a chance to drive Mike Trout in when he reaches base. David Freese is punchless against right-handed pitchers, Matt Joyce is Matt Joyce, and Aybar a) isn’t really a run producer, and b) has a .061 ISO that is his worst rate since 2007. Against Boston Aybar went 5-for-12 with a walk, and since becoming the permanent (for now) leadoff hitter last Monday in Toronto Aybar is 8-for-30. That .266 batting average is very Aybar-esque considering his career rate is .274. Aybar doesn’t reach base enough to be an optimal leadoff hitter, but as long as he can maintain Aybar-ness he is probably the best option the Angels have at this point. The longer Aybar holds down that spot adequately, the longer Calhoun can drive in runs from the clean up spot. A prolonged Aybar swoon, though, and it’s probably time to shake up the top of the order again.
Man, this offense is such a bummer.
Quick Observations
* Does a ton of feathers weigh more than a Featherston?
* Fox had the Saturday game. How does three hours of Joe Buck, Tom Verducci, and Harold Reynolds sound?! Early in the game Verducci said the Angels are one of the best baserunning teams in the league. Which, just, no. Baseball Prospectus lists the Angels as the fifth best baserunning team in the American League and even that feels generous.
* Harold Reynolds is what we all deserve for complaining about Tim McCarver. By the way I kind of like Joe Buck. /dodges tomato
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