Albert Pujols continued to break out of his slump in a big way Monday night, blasting two home runs off of an uncharacteristically erratic Ian Kennedy to not only move into sole possession of 13th place on the all-time home run list but also to give Garrett Richards the run support he’s been missing all year.
Pujols’ overall numbers still look pretty bleak—.171/.241/.382—but the Angels have to be encouraged by Sunday’s and Monday’s performances. Hopefully it won’t be too long before his slash line at least resembles last year’s numbers, which would go a long way toward removing “MLB’s Worst Offense” from the team’s business cards. Scoring more than five runs for the second time this season was a good start.
Run Expectancy Rundown
Albert Pujols walloped the aforementioned dingers, Mike Trout added a laser shot for his fourth of the year, and Rafael Ortega tallied two hits for the second straight start. Cliff Pennington and Ji-Man Choi both walked twice, guaranteeing the former another start and second and giving the latter an awesome .111/.429/.111 line on the year. Carlos Perez continues to struggle, which makes one wonder how long the starting job will remain his, especially with how well Geovany Soto is hitting.
The normally swing-happy Royals forced Garrett Richards to make a lot of pitches Monday night, but they couldn’t do much with them other than watch them go by. Mike Moustakas walked twice, while Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer, and Alcides Escobar each took one free pass. Salvador Perez notched an RBI single in the fourth, but was only made possible because of a fielding error by Pujols.
Starting Pitcher Scores
Garrett Richards was the epitome of effectively wild, walking five and throwing just 60 percent strikes overall but allowing just three hits and no earned runs in 6⅔. He now owns a sparkly 2.35 ERA.
Ian Kennedy, on the other hand, was wildly ineffective. He allowed seven hits and five runs in six innings while walking five, hitting two, and throwing a costly wild pitch. Not a great night.
Bullpen Battle
Fernando Salas got out of the jam left by Richards in the seventh then added a scoreless eighth. Joe Smith closed things out in the ninth. The Angels saw the lesser, more no-way-that-guy-is-still-pitching end of the Royals bullpen on Monday, getting an insurance run off of Joakim Soria then doing nothing against Chien-Ming Wang.
Game Flow
With Richards on the mound, the Angels had this one well in hand after the first.
Halo Hero
At this pace, Albert will crack the Top 10 on the all-time dinger list by July.
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