It would be easy to pin Sunday’s heart-wrenching loss on the bullpen yet again, but that would overlook the elephant in the room: the feckless offense. Like Saturday, the Angels opened up an early lead with their bats only to disappear completely. From Carlos Perez’s groundout in the fourth to his strikeout to end the top of the 12th, the Angels tallied zero hits. They went 0-for-27 over the game’s final eight innings and change, reaching just twice (BB and E5).
By the end of the day Sunday, a weekend that had begun as an opportunity to beat up on the AL’s worst offense had unwittingly become a passing of the torch. I would really rather not see how far down this rabbit hole goes.
Run Expectancy Rundown
Albert Pujols hit his second home run of the season in the first, then he and everyone else decided to take the rest of the day off. The team’s only other hits on the afternoon were doubles from Kole Calhoun and Mike Trout, and a single from Andrelton Simmons. All of them came in the fourth inning or earlier. Simmons somehow has a 10-game hitting streak going, which is good, but he’s still hitting .234 and has yet to take a walk, so…
Trevor Plouffe absolutely killed the Angels again. Plouffe upped his weekend line to 8-for-12 with Sunday’s 3-for-4 performance. He then got hurt in the 10th inning, because Twins. Miguel Sano, Joe Mauer, and Oswaldo Arcia all had multi-hit efforts as well, but it was Arcia’s well-placed single in the 12th that proved the most important.
Starting Pitcher Scores
Nick Tropeano put together another strong outing, ending the day an out away from a quality start. He allowed just one run on five hits, dropping his ERA to 2.03 over his last six Angels starts. It doesn’t appear that Tropeano will ever mow offenses down, but five or six strong innings every fifth day is nothing to scoff at.
Kyle Gibson was more or less on cruise control after the first inning. He allowed runners into scoring position in the third and fourth, but answered with strikeouts and weak contact. His final three innings were spotless.
Bullpen Battle
That part above about not blaming the bullpen for this one? Doesn’t apply to Joe Smith, who for the second day in a row failed to keep the heart of the Twins order from doing damage. He’s now allowed runs in three of his last four appearances. Everyone else was fine, overworked as they are. Cory Rasmus unfairly takes the L.
Game Flow
If you’re looking for a silver lining, at least the Angels never had a better than 80 percent chance of winning this one?
Angel Antagonist
There’s no mugshot that’s just everyone in Sunday’s lineup, so Joe gets it for the second straight day.
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