Boxscore Breakdown #146: Brought to you by the letters HBP – Angels 7, Rangers 3

Hey, Texas. Knock it the fuck off. Quit hitting Mike Trout. It isn’t nice. It isn’t safe either.

Did you see what happened to Giancarlo Stanton last night? Totally not cool, bro.

Oh, sure, you’re doing it “by accident.” Riiight. Like Nick Martinez isn’t good enough to know where the ball is going.

(checks Nick Martinez’s stats)

OK, fine, he probably isn’t good enough to know where the ball is going. Maybe try getting a pitcher who isn’t total garbage and not a threat to the safety of everyone he pitches too then. Just because half your 40-man roster is on the disabled list already doesn’t mean you get to show wanton disregard for the health of everyone else’s roster. That’s just selfish, inconsiderate and mean-spirited.

We can’t have anyone inadvertently breaking the best player on the planet before the postseason starts. If you really need to hit someone, hit Hank Conger. We’d be totally cool with that. He’s got a good sense of humor, I’m sure he’d just laugh it off. But no, you had to plunk Trout three times in two games. You big bunch of sore losers.

Run Expectancy Rundown
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1ij5xcOt1dAvuO4fvZM4o8Ho9vy64c-7yVcfO3hNZ0WU/pubchart” query=”oid=1976391661&format=interactive” width=”623″ height=”342″ /] The Angels managed to score seven runs despite only having seven hits. Nobody even got multiple hits. Well, Trout got hit multiple times, so I guess that sort of counts. The big winner on the day though was Erick Aybar, who managed to yank a two-run homer into the corner. The big loser on the day was Albert Pujols, who struck out four times in one game for the first time in history.

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1ij5xcOt1dAvuO4fvZM4o8Ho9vy64c-7yVcfO3hNZ0WU/pubchart” query=”oid=1154832181&format=interactive” width=”620″ height=”341″ /] Leonys Martin yanked a homer of his own into the corner. J.P. Arencibia‘s corpse also cranked a solo shot. They didn’t really get much going overall but it might also have been all the Rangers are capable of.

Starting Pitcher Scores
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1ij5xcOt1dAvuO4fvZM4o8Ho9vy64c-7yVcfO3hNZ0WU/pubchart” query=”oid=161400381&format=interactive” width=”584″ height=”293″ /] Cory Rasmus has a very nice outing save for that one pitch to Martin. Nick Martinez was a jerk.

Bullpen Battle
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1ij5xcOt1dAvuO4fvZM4o8Ho9vy64c-7yVcfO3hNZ0WU/pubchart” query=”oid=1141913419&format=interactive” width=”620″ height=”315″ /] Oddly, it was Salas and Grilli who had the hiccups, but the lesser relievers, Roth, Pestano and Herrera that managed to get through unscathed… barely, but still unscathed.

Game Flow
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1ij5xcOt1dAvuO4fvZM4o8Ho9vy64c-7yVcfO3hNZ0WU/pubchart” query=”oid=451609002&format=interactive” width=”619″ height=”316″ /] To mix things up a bit, the Rangers actually led for a quick second. That was cute, but it didn’t last long and they didn’t really ever do anything after that to threaten the win expectancy.

Halo Hero

Aybar hit the ball real far… by his standards.