Game Rewind: Fisted and Booted – Mariners 2, Angels 1

The Angels took the loss from both ends tonight, getting both booted and fisted by the Seattle Mariners on a night where the Texas Rangers swept their doubleheader to close the gap on the Angels in the AL West.

The Angels were done in by the fist, as in Doug Fister.

Once again the Angels were done in by their inability to make adjustments at the plate against a rookie that they had never faced before.  Doug Fister limited the Angels to just one run over seven inning on five hits and two walks.  Not exactly what anyone expected from an offense that has cranked out 19 runs over the last two games.  Of course, the Angels were kind to Fister and helped him out with some poor execution of their own, twice grounding into double plays as well as a strike ’em out-throw ’em out double play in the first inning.

Then again that one run the Angels scored off of Fister might have held up had the team done a better job defensively.  The Mariners got their first run after Jeff Mathis failed to throw out Franklin Gutierrez on a stolen base attempt in the first inning, setting him up to score on a two-out single by Mike Sweeney a batter later.  Seattle’s second run might as well have been gift wrapped by the Angels thanks to Erick Aybar over running a Franklin Gutierrez (again with this guy?) groundball and Bobby Abreu booted Jose Lopez’s two-out double later in the inning, giving Gutierrez just enough time to score the go-ahead run.

The Angels booted themselves right into a tough loss.

Angelic Accomplishments:

• Ervin Santana worked his voodoo again, pitching his fifth consecutive quality start, and the fourth consecutive quality start for the Angels this week.  It is a shame Santana didn’t get the win either because he did a stellar job of pitching his way out of multiple jams that generally weren’t even his fault.

Devilish Details:

• Before we declare Santana 100% back to normal, I’d sure like to see him go more than six innings in a game.  He has gone just six inning in his last four starts and has registered more than six innings pitched just four times in his 18 total starts this year.
• Erick Aybar got his “swing away” privileges revoked thanks to his inability to get Maicer Izturis over to third with no outs in the eighth inning and the Angels trailing by one.  Mike Scioscia tried to show some faith in Aybar and didn’t have him lay down a sac bunt to move Izzy over, but Erick let him down by going after the first pitch and flying out to left field, the exact part of the field he wasn’t supposed to hit it to.  Aybar shouldn’t even bother looking for the bunt sign the next time he is in that situation because I 100% guarantee he is going to get it.
• Mike Sciosica might’ve made another error in judgment by letting Darren Oliver even pitch to Jose Lopez in the first place.  DO has been good against both righties and lefties this year, but having Jepsen face Lopez was the better strategy, statistically speaking, especially with another dangerous righty up after Lopez.  This is where having no bullpen depth hurts the Angels.  Sosh probably would’ve had Jepsen in there against Lopez except he probably felt he had to save him for later in such a tight game and not other reliable middle relievers to call upon.

Halo Anti-Hero:

• Erick Aybar

I don’t know if he would’ve even gotten Franklin Gutierrez on the grounder in the 8th, but he twice left runners in scoring position and totally killed the Angels’ chance at winning with his failure to get Izturis to third base in the 8th.