Boy, that “Garrett Richards is developing into an ace” narrative really took a dump, didn’t it? Nothing worked for Richards in this and all he was able to do was get two outs. This is also his second poor start in his last three turns, so while it is nice to try and excuse it with “it just was one of those days,” he kind of already had “one of those days” earlier this month. Pretty soon, that becomes an actual trend.
Run Expectancy Rundown
Howie Kendrick, C.J. Cron and Mike Trout did what they could to get the Angels back into this one, but they simply dug themselves too big of a hole. Even then, they actually left a lot of runs on the table, going one for eight with RISP. For that, there was plenty of blame to go around.
You might have to get a widescreen monitor just to fit Josh Donaldson‘s bar onto your screen. That’s kind of the crazy thing about this game, it was really just Donaldson, Brandon Moss and, to a lesser extent, Coco Crisp doing all of the damage. It wasn’t as if it was an all-out onslaught.
Starting Pitcher Scores
If you want to know why the pitcher win is a BS stat, just look at Drew Pomeranz. He was legitimately garbage in this game, but because Richards was a flaming dumpster fire, Pomeranz gets the vaunted “W.”
Bullpen Battle
I probably should’ve included Wade LeBlanc with the starters since his line looks more like that of a starting pitcher. Heck, he probably had the best line out of the “starters” in this game. He wasn’t particularly good, but at least he soaked up a lot of innings. As for the A’s, the only thing I have to say about their bullpen is that it is really frustrating that Dan Otero is not left-handed. That’s the name of a left-handed reliever and I refuse to believe otherwise. What a jerk.
Game Flow
Really, what am I supposed to say about this? The game was over by the end of the first inning. I guess the Angels gave themselves a puncher’s chance in the fifth inning, but even with their comeback prowess this year, it wasn’t really all that realistic.
Halo A-Hole
Sometimes picking the A-Hole is pretty hard. This was not one of those times.
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