This is just the punniest headline series of the year isn’t it? I just can’t help myself.
As for the game, things were looking smiley for Drew Smyly as he racked up the Ks. After he strung together seven in a row, the sense of panic was palpable from Angels fans over this suddenly inept offense. But finally, the Halos got to Smyly to take the lead and never let it go, making poor Drew Smyly frowny in the process.
OK, that was awful. I might need to institute a pun embargo for a week or two.
Run Expectancy Rundown
What a serendipitous injury for Josh Hamilton. He bails after his first plate appearance, Efren Navarro steps, collects two hits and drives in the winning run. Plus, nobody wrings their hands over Hambone’s power outage for a night. Everyone wins! Everyone but Mike Trout, that is. Detroit seems to be the first team that wised up and made a concerted effort to work Trout up in the zone. It’s working, so let’s hope no advance scouts have been paying attention.
Miguel Cabrera made Skaggs pay for the one mistake he made all night. But it was really Alex Avila striking out to end the threat in the second and GIDPing in the fifth that made the difference.
Starting Pitcher Scores
Tyler Skaggs didn’t go deep in the game, but he fought hard the whole way through. He wasn’t bad, but he also had his share of threats to turn away. Smyly obviously had all those whiffs, but what amazed me is he did it with a relatively low pitch count. He was only at 92 when he got the hook with two out in the sixth.
Bullpen Battle
Mike Morin came through in a big way in the sixth, which, judging by his amped up reaction, he really needed. Street gave up a base hit, but the pen was otherwise perfect and fell just the way Scioscia would like it to every night. For Detroit, the pen wasn’t great, but they didn’t allow a run either, so no harm, no foul.
Game Flow
Even after falling down by one, the Angels were still right there, but after they took a one-run lead, their win expectancy just rocketed right up, basically because the Tigers only got one runner on base after that.
Halo Hero
His second game-winning hit since the break. Efren is bordering on cult hero status now.
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