Remember how this past winter every Angel fan was salivating at the thought of being able to eat up the Houston Astros? We should be used to the fact that as Angel fans nothing will come to us as expected. Following that trend, the Angels have been absolutely pathetic against the Houston Astros this season and this afternoon's game was no different. Near fantastic starting pitching littered with a few unfortunate mistakes by C.J Wilson mixed in with absolutely pathetic defense and the inability to hit with RISP killed the Angels. Why does it seem like the Angels defense always falls apart behind Wilson against the Astros?
The only real thing the Angels could have done to win this game is having anybody other than Callaspo playing 3B, but that is very unfair thinking. This has been an important week for the Angels, we've all learned as fast as the hot streaks come the cold ones can hit just as hard…
and how hard it has hit.
Game Notes
— This just in, the Angels cannot beat the teams that in all fairness they should be phoning in their gameplay. Teams like the Astros? The Angels should be showing up on 2.5 hours of sleep after hard drinking and partying the night before, barely able to stand let alone swing a bat or field a ball, and still be able to rack up a win. This is a team that can take it hard to World Series caliber opponents and pull together gritty wins, but when it comes to subpar teams that exist only to buff up a contenders win total the Angels just cannot find a way to bring in a victory. The Angels can do all they want against the contenders, they can keep fighting tooth and nail and bring home hard earned victories from teams like Oakland and Texas but if they can't find ways to consistently beat the scrubs they will not find themselves playing in the postseason. Look at the A's, they are undefeated against the Astros. Now look at the Angels. Need I say more?
— Not even an epic 9th inning home run by Hank Conger could save the game, which in all fairness should have ended the afternoon on a walk-off for the Angels. Despite the Angels inability to collect the runs when the opportunities presented themselves, such as Pujols late inning no-out double that could not be cashed in, the pitching kept them incredibly close the whole time. C.J was surprisingly economic with his pitches through 7.1 IP up until his last inning of work, much unlike the C.J that we're used to seeing rack up a 30-40 pitch count through the first 2 innings of the game. Not only did C.J leave the game with allowing only 3 runs, but Michael Kohn was able to come in an clean up with two consecutive K's to end the inning and stand two inherited runners. Unfortunately this was followed by Pujols lead-off double which ultimately saw him stranded at second.
— What in the living hell was up with Alberto Callaspo today? Despite being an incredibly consistent and even superb fielder he made throwing error after throwing error which the Astros capitalized on the take the game. In Garrett Richards inning of work which saw him load the bases with no outs before leaving with an injured ankle after getting a rather fantastic out at out Callaspo killed what could have been a clean inning. Callaspo failed to turn a botched sacrifice bunt into a rather easy double play, instead giving Aybar a terribly low throw that he could not handle. That was the play that ultimately allowed the Astros to tack on an extra 2 runs to make it 5-2 at the time, 2 runs which proved incredibly important as they saved the Astros from being walked-off on by Hank Congers 2 run shot. That was just the worst of many throwing errors by Callaspo today; is anyone else feeling another round of Luis Jimenez?
Halo A-Hole
I think this is the first time I've ever had Callaspo up in the wall of shame. The typically consistent Callaspo was just a pile of horseshit playing the field today, and I use that word as heavily as it can possibly be used. I don't want to be the guy jumping to conclusions, but I came this close to officially stripping him of "Callasbro" status.
this close
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