An Angel win over the Tigers in which Kazmir helped the rotation come full circle.
Los Angeles Angels of AWESOMENESS
- I might have to take back my off-season decision to make Jered Weaver my favorite player. Nothing against Weave, but I have always wanted to be a Kendrick fan but found him too frustrating. That hasn’t been the case this year though and he proved it again tonight as he had another huge hit early in the game to drive in two runs with a double.
- In the last turn through the rotation (including Kazmir’s start tonight) the Angel starting pitchers issued just one walk. That is unreal, especially when you consider that many of them were struggling with their command in the earlier starts.
- Congratulations to Bobby Abreu on pick up career steal 350. It was just his second swipe on the year though, so hopefully it gets him kick started on running more and more.
- Maybe Kendry Morales is starting to come around a bit. He had three hits tonight and that is definitely a start even if they were all singles. Baby steps, K-Mo, baby steps.
- Did anyone else notice a certain AL West team that suddenly has a winning record again. I know I did!
Los Angeles Angels of FAIL
- Like it or not, with Jeff Mathis out at least six weeks, Scioscia is stuck with Mike Napoli as his primary catcher. It would have been nice had Naps taken a bit more advantage of the opportunity by not hitting into a rally-killing double play and failing to throw out the Tigers on their only stolen base attempt.
- Too bad for Scott Kazmir that Jason Bulger had to come in allow some blemishes to appear on his line when Bulger let the two runners he inherited from Kaz score. Actually, we should blame Mike Scioscia who should know by now that Bulger stinks when he comes into a game with runners on base. Thus far in 2010, Bulger has inherited seven runners and allowed six of them to score. Just terrible.
- I think it might be time to put Scot Shields on the disabled list because he is a downright disaster right now and there simply has to be something wrong with him. He couldn’t find the strike zone again tonight and it nearly cost LAA the game. Let me just put it this way, it is never a good sign when you are relieved to see Matt Palmer enter a game.
Halo Hero of the Game
Kaz completed the circle of great work from the Angel rotation.
Scott Kazmir’s stat line may not have been as impressive as the other starters this last week, but he deserves this honor. Kaz was much sharper in his second start of the season, showing much better command and, most importantly, pitching aggressively in the strike zone. That was good enough to get the win and the Halo Hero tonight. That being said, he still has some work to do. Kazmir needs to keep working towards being a more efficient pitcher as well as recovering some of his lost velocity. His heater spent most of the night in the 88-90 mph zone and only topped 91 mph a handful of times.
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