Game Rewind: When Is a Loss Not Really a Loss? – Rangers 11, Angels 3

When is a loss not really a loss?  When it is your Triple-A team doing the losing.

You can take the player out of the minors, but you can’t take the minors out of the player.

The boxscore suggests that the Rangers thumped the Angels tonight and technically they did, but that was only because MLB requires all the September call-ups to wear the big league uniforms instead of their standard Triple-A threads.

With Texas opting to use almost exclusively their regular starters, the Los Angeles Bees of Salt Lake stood little chance in this one.  Kendry Morales tried to give the youngsters a boost in his brief stint of playing time, but it wasn’t enough as it turns out that 12-year veteran Kevin Millwood is actually good when he is facing a Triple-A line-up.  So, yes, the Angels did add one to the loss column, but from a realistic standpoint, I don’t think you’ll see any long faces in the clubhouse tonight.

OK, maybe Bell has a reason to have a long face.  He gets an exception.

Angelic Accomplishments:

• Not much was exciting during the game, but the footage of the fan rally afterwards looked pretty sweet.

Devilish Details:

• I now feel really bad about predicting that Trevor Bell would get shelled.  Not only was I right about him giving up a bunch of runs, but my prognosticating powers even got Bell shelled physically when he got struck by that broken bat.  That was scary.  I really must learn that with great power comes great responsibility.
• Brandon Wood is rusty and all, but he is not doing much to make a case for him making the post-season roster.  He’s now made errors in two straight games and struck out five times in his last nine at-bats.
• Speaking of spoiling one’s shot at a playoff roster spot, Jose Arredondo just went from long shot to no chance in hell.  I know he pitched three days in a row, but he was all over the place again tonight and there is no point in carrying him in the ALDS.

Halo Anti-Hero:

• The killer bat

No, not that kind, the one the baseball kind that tried to impale Trevor Bell.  That was just uncalled for.