Game recap 7/16/12: Replay – Tigers 8 Angels 6

Boy oh boy it is me or does it look like the Angels are reverted back to their mid-April form? Oh course it isn’t just me, everyone keeps harping that same phrase. “It’s beginning of the season Angels all over again!” While this is seemingly true as the bullpen has been incapable of holding leads or pitching through tight games while the starting pitching has had trouble going deep into games you can’t forget the key factor in the Angels resurgence. 

Offense.

The offense was arguably the ugliest part of the Angels struggles during the beginning of the season, and the offense that was here pre-All Star break is still here. The starting pitching is still the only real worry, the bullpen will stabilize once the starting pitching does, you gotta think that the starters are pitching under some pressure with all this gloom and doom hanging over their heads. The rotation has been slimmed down to just Weaver and Wilson and it’s apparent that this fact is killing the other starters on the mound. Santana knows he has to step it up, but can’t; Williams knows he has to anchor down the bottom half of the rotation, he is capable but can one bad start get the ball rolling in the wrong direction for him?

It’ll take a couple weeks for the pitching to really stabalize, until then we just have to hope the offense can keep raking in big innings and the starters can at least keep the team in it and keep leads from slipping away.

Angels 6 Tigers 8 

Jeez where can I start here? The starting pitching of Ervin Santana? The blowpen woes? The erratic defense that can’t stop crapping itself once the errors start snowballing on the team? 

At least now that the Angels don’t have to fret over a failing offense in addition to craptastic pitching like they did in April-May it’ll be easier to turn this problem the other way.

Game Recap

• Maybe the bullpen wouldn’t have done so bad if Santana didn’t put them in such hot water to begin with. Well that’s actually kind of an obvious statement, of course they would have, if it wasn’t for Santana’s inability to hold down the fort when the Angels tack on a good sized lead the pressure wouldn’t have been on this team the whole entire game. The bullpen performance is just a product of the tone set by the starting pitching, I don’t buy the “they’re just do for a bad stretch” excuse. The Angels just need one of the other guys to step it up, just ONE of them. Richards, Williams, Haren, Santana; there is more than enough talent in that pool to anchor down that rotation and then some. They can still reach the potential expected of them this offseason, it’ll just take a lot of work to get their.

• At least the offense is looking fancier then ever. Trout was reduced to simple human levels today, just 1 hit in 5 trips, though he did bring in a clutch walk that extended the inning for Torii Hunter who in turn produced big RBI’s. Hunter had a HUGE day back, and while Garrett Wilson did remark earlier that it shows off Torii’s age when he hurts himself after coming back from a few days off it shows more that age doesn’t mean a thing for a player like Torii hunter. Most guys his age tend to see their defense decline harder than their offense, yet Hunter is still showing off his Gold Glove caliber defense that many outfielders in the league would kill to have. 

• Oh hey, Kendrys played today? I almost didn’t notice with 0’fer he threw up today. Kendrys offense is still on the weak side, though he has shown that he can come through in the clutch time and time again. At least the power that he isn’t bringing to the table is made up for by the bounty of power Trumbo brings to the table.

Halo A-Hole

Because he gave the game away, and because he’s the easiest one to hate on.

Thanks for this one big guy.