A Mike Trout homer? A dominant King Felix? An Opening Day loss by the Angels to the Mariners? Didn’t we do this already? It’s deja vu all over again. But that’s a good thing, right? After all, the Halos did go on to win 98 wins after suffering the same fate last season. So….. yay? Let’s get into the first Boxscore Breakdown of the year.
Run Expectancy Rundown
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Mike Trout and not much else was the story on offense, which is pretty much the greatest fear of all Angels fans, right? Even then, Trout K’d three times (so much for cutting back on strikeouts), so he didn’t exactly light the world on fire either. In fact, he was a net negative on the day. It was Albert Pujols drawing two walks that led the team.
Starting Pitcher Scores
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Well, time to start freaking out over Jered Weaver’s velocity again. I know he build velocity over the course of the season, but he came out in this one pumping 83 MPH heaters. I legitimately don’t think he topped 85 MPH at any point. That’s kind of terrifying.
On the other side there is Felix Hernandez who did Felix Hernandez things. He was terrific unto himself, but he also was given a few extra inches below the strike zone to work with by XXX. When that happens, no opposing lineup is going to be able to dethrone the King.
Bullpen Battle
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Both bullpens graded out decently here, but neither actually pitched all that well. Cesar Ramos made his Angels debut and got a big punch out against Cano, but he also gave up a hit to Brad Miller and really only escaped the inning because of an outfield assist from Calhoun. Salas tried to give up his traditional Opening Day dinger, but was bailed out by Trout. For Seattle, Farquahar have the Angels a golden opportunity to tie the game, but they shot themselves in the foot instead.
Defensive Dynamics
So, Trout did that fancy thing you see above, but defense really wasn’t strong suit for the Angels. In fact, one could make a pretty strong case that their defense cost them the game. Kole Calhoun came up just short on a triple for Seth Smith that resulted in two runs. Matt Joyce showed why he is better of as a DH as he caused a Smith flyball to turn into a double and nearly blew out Mike Trout’s knees in the process. Make no mistake, this is not a good defensive team. It might even be a pretty bad defensive team and there will be games like this one where that defensive deficiency will cost them the game. Well, that and an umpire with a ridiculous strike zone.
Game Flow
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It started so well for the Halos, but that third inning crippled them. They only really mounted one legit threat in the fifth inning. After that, it was all Mariners.
Halo A-Hole
A rough Angels debut for Matt Joyce. He fanned twice, killed a few rallies and made a defensive blunder that very nearly injured Mike Trout. That’s no way to ingratiate yourself to a new fanbase, Matt.
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