It was a one-hitter and a shutout for the Angels! The catch is that the Halos were the ones that got one-hit but also the ones that pitched the shutout. Yes, this juggernaut offense only mustered a single solitary hit against known pitching luminary Jesse Chavez. Fortunately for them, that one hit left the yard and none of the hits the A’s had did. A win is a win, I guess.
Angels 2, Athletics 0
Run Expectancy Rundown
Yep, Kole Calhoun was the only legitimate offensive contributor with the two-run shot of Chavez. Mike Trout was the only other Angel on the positive side of the ledger thanks to him drawing a walk and swiping a base and just being Mike Trout. Everyone else was pretty terrible, especially Matt Joyce who is turning hitting weak pop-ups on late swings into a fine art. Oh, look at that, Drew Butera was a positive as well. I just naturally assumed he was in the negative. Good for you, Drew!
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/1mI6t2kJPY4rIGI17cuUPrQvV8_ulRFYPIHIg26wL9_A/pubchart” query=”oid=1154832181&format=interactive” width=”620″ height=”341″ /] Finally! The reign of Sam Fuld terror has been put to an end!!! That proved to be important with Semien and Sogard having multi-hit games and setting the table for the top of the order, but the top of the order got shutdown.Starting Pitcher Scores
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These two spot starters both made a convincing case to become more permanent features of their respective rotations. Nick Tropeano was particularly impressive. He straight up shoved, keeping the Oakland bats off balance all night. His counterpart, Jesse Chavez, is quickly shaping up to be one of those random mediocre Oakland pitchers that has an inexplicable mastery over the Halos.
Bullpen Battle
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The Angels survived Fernando Salas in the seventh which is all they really needed to do to hand the ball over to Smith and Street to put the game on ice like they do. The Oakland bullpen was perfect, but that is a given seeing how we already know the Angels got just one hit.
Game Flow
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The graph only really moved once, that was the Calhoun homer. There was a few minor dips when Salas and Smith had brief scares in their innings, but it was a pretty uneventful game otherwise.
Halo Hero
Angels fans are already readying petitions to have Tropeano added to the rotation, but first they need to decide who he should replace since the only guy pitching legitimately poorly is Jered Weaver and Angels fans will never turn on him. This is quite the quandary.
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