Boxscore Breakdown #119: Grounded – Angels 5, White Sox 3

Huston Street said fans shouldn’t doubt this team. We all just needed to take a step back from their recent struggles and get a little perspective. One could say we just needed to be grounded a little bit. Well, Garrett Richards took that literally and grounded the Angels and the White Sox. After his recent struggles, G-Rich induced 18 groundball outs, including three very timely double plays. Even five of the eight hits he allowed were groundball hits. You don’t get much more grounded than that and it turns out Street was right (even though it wasn’t really what he meant), it was exactly what the Angels needed.

Angels 5, White Sox 3

Run Expectancy Rundown
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1_GGZ-8P2QrBw15igg2ljedEMoxD6NZGkFnIBpI8Pixg/pubchart” query=”oid=1976391661&format=interactive” width=”623″ height=”389″ /] Usually it would be a bad sign that Carlos Perez led the team in RE24 but it managed to workout as the Halos made the most of their five hits, one walk and one hit batsman. Kaleb Cowart had a tough debut, but these things happen. One thing his presence did allow as for Giavotella being the one replaced on defense. That’s something I think we will see a lot more of in the final weeks here. More important than all of that is that Albert Pujols homered yet again. If Mike Trout can get hot again, that’s good news for the Angels because we all saw what happened the last time those two got hot at the same time.

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1_GGZ-8P2QrBw15igg2ljedEMoxD6NZGkFnIBpI8Pixg/pubchart” query=”oid=1154832181&format=interactive” width=”620″ height=”341″ /] Jose Abreu gave the Angels fits, but Melky Cabrera and his two GIDPs washed out just about everything Abreu did.

Starting Pitcher Scores
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1_GGZ-8P2QrBw15igg2ljedEMoxD6NZGkFnIBpI8Pixg/pubchart” query=”oid=161400381&format=interactive” width=”584″ height=”293″ /] Garrett Richards didn’t have a ton of strikeouts, but he did generate all the groundballs, so this ended up being a pretty encouraging start for him. John Danks wasn’t all that much worse, but the two homers he allowed were the difference.

Bullpen Battle
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1_GGZ-8P2QrBw15igg2ljedEMoxD6NZGkFnIBpI8Pixg/pubchart” query=”oid=1141913419&format=interactive” width=”620″ height=”315″ /] Smith and Street were perfect in relief and Matt Albers got to finish a game without getting a save. Everybody wins.

Game Flow
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1_GGZ-8P2QrBw15igg2ljedEMoxD6NZGkFnIBpI8Pixg/pubchart” query=”oid=451609002&format=interactive” width=”619″ height=”316″ /] For the first time in forever, the Angels took an early lead and cruised to victory without any real drama along the way.

Halo Hero

G-Rich? More like GIDP-Rich, amirite?