I can’t believe I’m writing this, but… God bless the Boston Red Sox. Any worries about the Angels getting off to yet another slow start to their second half were quickly abated with the help of a Boston club that decided just to not show up at all for the four-game set. The walk-off heroics of the first night, the pair of shutouts, and the stellar pitching throughout immediately brought to mind last season’s Best Sweep Ever, when the Halos dominated the Oakland A’s in a four-game series at the end of August and took control of the AL West for good. This series didn’t bring quite the catharsis of that one (because Boston is terrible and the Angels are still just two up on the Astros), but damn was it still incredibly fun to watch.
Despite just four more hits than the Red Sox in the series, the Angels managed 22 runs to just four for Boston, mostly because dingers but also because the entire pitching staff has been absolute nails for the past month. The Halos have allowed three runs or fewer in 17 of their last 20 games—of which they’ve won 16—lowering the team ERA by a whopping 35 points to 3.52, good for the second-best mark in the American League. You can take the pessimistic approach if you want and decide this recent surge is a mirage because much of it has come against lesser foes, but I prefer to look at it as a good team finally pulling things together to give the weak teams the proper thwacking they deserve.
Entering July, the Angels were fortunate to sit four games over .500. Their run differential was a perfectly mediocre ±0, and each of their last six wins involved four runs scored or fewer. Since then the Halos have dominated the run-differential game, outscoring their opponents 88–37 and giving them fifth-best run differential (+51) in the AL. And while teams like the Blue Jays (+89) and A’s (+53) continue to severely underperform their expected W-L due to a combination of poor pitching and bad luck with run distribution, the Angels are right where they’re supposed to be at 52–40. Let’s hope they can keep it up as they take on tougher competition in the coming weeks.
Boxscore Breakdowns
Game 1: Angels 1, Red Sox 0 | Game 2: Angels 3, Red Sox 0
Game 3: Angels 11, Red Sox 1 | Game 4: Angels 7, Red Sox 3
Series Takeaways
1) Dingers Are The Best
Fair warning, I’m about to write the word “dingers” way too many times.
If you looked just at the two teams’ hit totals for the series, you’d assume that the Red Sox put up much more of a fight than they did against the Angels. “Only four fewer hits! Must have been some close games!”
Noooooope. Nope nope nope.
Yes, Boston had 22 hits in the series, but 18 of those were singles. Only one was a dinger. The Angels, on the other hand, had 26 hits, just 13 of which were singles. NINE were dingers. I’m no baseball expert, but that seems like a much more surefire way to score some runs.
The Angels have now homered a ridiculous 26 times in 14 games this month. That’s eight more dingers than they had in all of April, and just four fewer than they had last month in 27 games. The recent dinger bonanza has raised the team SLG by nearly 20 points in two weeks, which is almost unheard of this late in a season. The Halos now own a .400 SLG as a team, marking the first time all year they’ve been better than average in that department.
Of course, no mention of the Angels and dingers is complete without talking about what Mike Trout and Albert Pujols are doing this year. The pair have combined for 57 home runs so far this season, which not only makes up 54% of the team’s dinger total but also is just one less than the ENTIRE ATLANTA BRAVES ROSTER. Again: Trout and Pujols have combined for one less dinger than a whole MLB organization this year despite 2,178 (!!!) fewer plate appearances. Bonkers.
If they’re able to keep it up, could very well become the second 50-homer teammates in MLB history. The other pair? Mantle and Maris, 1961.
2) Andrew Heaney Is Everything Hector Santiago Aspires To Be
The Angels got two more strong starts from Hector Santiago and Andrew Heaney on Monday, and having them go back-to-back in a day/night doubleheader really put their differing styles in sharp relief.
Santiago tied a career high with 10 K’s in the day game, but consistently pitched himself into hitters’ counts and never found consistency with his release point. In the end, he needed 114 pitches to get just 15 outs. The control issues Monday were notably worse than his norm this season, but the main point remains: He’s inefficient. Only once has he made it through the seventh inning this year with fewer than 100 pitches thrown.
Heaney, meanwhile, was the picture of efficiency in the night cap. He needed only 96 pitches to get 21 outs, marking his *fourth straight* start of at least seven innings and fewer than 100 pitches. The dude is just always in or around the zone, and doesn’t seem to go into those inning-long lapses where his mechanics escape him like Santiago and C.J. Wilson do.
I know the sample size is still small, but maybe Heaney can offer a few pointers to the vets about how to keep things in control for an entire start.
Speaking of lefty starters…
3) More Lefty Starts, Please
The Mariners, White Sox, A’s, Red Sox, Twins, and Rangers have the worst offensive numbers in the league against left-handed pitching this season. They also happen to be the opponents in 37 of the 70 remaining games (53%) the Angels have this season—not to mention their past eight contests. If the Halos want to try taking advantage of those teams, it makes sense for them to start as many lefties as they can.
This means not trading C.J. Wilson at the trade deadline, volatile as he may be.
If this were 2016, the Angels would have no issue bombarding these teams with southpaws even with Wilson gone. Tyler Skaggs will be back from Tommy John, Sean Newcomb will be pushing his way into the rotation, and Nate Smith and Tyler DeLoach will be sitting at Triple-A waiting for an opportunity. Right now, though, all the potential replacements for Wilson should he be dealt are right-handed. I realize that going with Nick Tropeano or Matt Shoemaker in Wilson’s stead probably wouldn’t represent much of a drop-off in production in the grand scheme of things, but might make a difference against the lefty-heavy offenses mentioned above.
I’m all for trading Wilson and getting a chunk of money back to spend elsewhere, but maybe Matt Klentak and company should wait until the winter to do so?
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
