An Angel loss to the Tigers in which the Halos looked pretty stupid.
Los Angeles Angels of AWESOMENESS
- Mike Napoli threw out a base stealer! The degree of difficulty was pretty low and Wood actually missed on the tag, but Naps needs to take whatever he can get defensively. As a bonus, he finally got off the schneid and drove in a run. Mathis who?
- The Halos only managed to scratch out four runs and six hits against Justin Verlander but they did a fine job of making him work for it and chasing him from the game after just five innings because he threw so many pitches. The Angels need to get back working counts more as that really drove the offense last season.
- Big ups to Matt Palmer for stopping all the bleeding that Joe Saunders caused. We haven’t seen a whole lot of the Angel relief corps coming in with the Angels down and keeping the game close enough for the Angels to pull off a comeback, but that is exactly what Palmer did tonight.
- How about some glove love for the Angels tonight. Reggie Willits made two excellent catches in the outfield and, of course, there was the play at first that Maicer Izturis made with his bare hand (though maybe calling for glove love is a bit ironic in that case).
Los Angeles Angels of FAIL
- I’m glad to see Brandon Wood is trying to change things up in order to try and save his season, but how about next time instead of getting a new haircut, he finally learns that when he is down 0-2 in the count the pitcher is going to try and get him to chase a breaking ball. I think he might be the only guy in the ballpark who hasn’t figured that out yet. Use your head, moron.
- Just a terrible base-running blunder (or as I like to call it, a Vladdy) by Bobby Abreu tonight. On a hit-and-run play with one out and a runner on third, Abreu seemingly sees quite clearly that Torii Hunter hits a ball in the air and that it will be catchable. Yet for some reason Bob doesn’t react and winds up getting doubled off to end the inning and the runner at third doesn’t score on the tag up as a result. Just mind-boggling and a play that ultimately killed the Angels since they wound up losing by a run.
- Inexcusable for Erick Aybar to take a called third strike with the bases loaded in the eighth, he has to be hacking there, especially since it wasn’t even a borderline pitch. Why, oh why do the Angels always choke when the bases are loaded? It is like they just magically lose the ability to have a smart at-bat when they see all those ducks on the pond. Ugh.
- For the ninth inning, the Angel outfield was Matsui in left, Rivera in center and Abreu in right. I think that might be the least range the Angel outfield has ever had. I think they only way it could get worse is if they replaced one of them with a corpse and even that would only be a minor downgrade.
- Torii Hunter needs to explain to me why when Jose Valverde hasn’t throw a strike since entering the game, he is up there hacking at the first pitch he throws close to the zone and ends up grounding into a doubleplay. There is no reason he shouldn’t be taking there and if he does swing, it better result in a homer. Stupid.
Angel A-Hole of the Game
Joe Saunders hit the showers early tonight and with good reason.
Joe Saunders was miserable tonight. I’m not surprised that he struggled against the righty-laden Tigers, but I am surprised that he couldn’t find the strike zone. Spotting the Tigers five early runs was just too much for this Angel offense that continues to have to scrap for every single run.
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