The Angels are alive and I have no idea how. After winning an absolute must-win series in Houston, the Halos trail the Astros by 1½ games overall and only one game in the loss column for the precious second wild card spot. Dallas Keuchel cruised through the first game, setting up two nail-biting match-ups the Angels somehow took, winning by a lone run both times. They nearly blew a 3-0 lead in consecutive games. Carlos Correa obliterated a Huston Street pitch that would have been a game-tying moonshot at any other stadium but landed safely for a double. Evan Gattis and his tight pants hit a rocket that damn near won the Tuesday game but pulled it just foul. Mike Scioscia did really dumb Mike Scioscia things. George Springer collected the biggest hit of his life until it was rendered meaningless a half-inning later. Hector Santiago defeated Lance McCullers. Fernando Salas was the eighth inning guy on Wednesday. Those all happened. All of those things could have flipped a game in the Astros’ favor and none of them did.
With ten games remaining in the season, the Angels’ immediate schedule gets friendly. Three at home against Seattle followed by three more at home against Oakland. After that, a difficult four-game set in Texas that COULD be easier if the Rangers clinch the division by then and elect to rest guys. Or, the Rangers don’t clinch the division and the Angels have a shot to steal the West if they sweep the series. That last scenario seems impossible. But so does watching all three of these Houston games and seeing the Angels come away victorious twice.
Boxscore Breakdowns
Takeaways
David Freese, Anti-Texan
David Freese can now stake his claim to owning the biggest hit of the season for the Angels. His two-out, two-strike, two-run double in the eighth inning off Pat Neshek put the Angels ahead when a loss seemed likely. It also looked like a fly out to left-center off the bat; on the replay you can see Freese hang his head when he trots to first base, assuming Colby Rasmus will catch the ball and end the Angel threat. Nope. Consider it payback for when Jed Lowrie‘s homer off Huston Street a little over a week ago looked like a fly out off the bat but juuussst sailed over Kole Calhoun‘s glove for the winning runs.
When the Angels acquired Freese from St. Louis for the steep price of Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk (gulp), they were hoping to get the 2011 version of Freese, the clutch-hitting World Series winner that stuck daggers into the Texas Rangers. Freese hasn’t been quite the star third baseman the Angels may have hoped he would be, but he’s been a solid player when healthy. It also appears he’s not quite done trolling Texas teams with lofty playoff aspirations.
Carlos Perez‘s Walk(s) to Remember
Carlos Perez, the Venezuelan god of walks? OK maybe I need to pump the brakes a bit because nobody is going to confuse Perez with Joey Votto, but after Perez walked twice in the series he has bumped up his season rate to 7.1%. That’s still below the 7.6% MLB average, but consider that Perez walked twice in his first 34 MLB games and the improvement is stark. His 10.6% rate in the second half is fourth best on the team, and second best if you remove Kyle Kubitza and Matt Joyce, who have hardly played. That’s better than everyone not named Mike Trout, notably Chris Iannetta, Kole Calhoun, and Albert Pujols,. The walks are important for Perez, too, given that his production when he swings the bat is almost entirely predicated on singles and BABIP luck. (Perez did chip in three hits in this series, including a huge RBI single that plated the eventual winning run in the eighth inning on Wednesday.)
Perez’ improved plate discipline is encouraging for an organization that has a decision to make on Iannetta in a few weeks. Re-sign him? Give him the qualifying offer? Let him walk, handing the starting job to Perez and the backup job to…someone? It’s no secret Iannetta’s production has fallen off a cliff this year, whether that’s because he angered the BABIP gods (.223) or because he’s a 32-year-old catcher. Whatever the reason, Perez stepping up his offensive game— 108 wRC+ after the All-Star break—at least gives the Angels hope the catching spot will be fine if Iannetta goes elsewhere in 2016. Iannetta is a valuable asset when he’s going well and a superior option to Perez; he is an above average offensive catcher with some pop and, now, an excellent pitch framer for a relative bargain. But is that player gone for good? For now, Perez is cheaper, younger, and hopefully will improve on his rookie campaign.
Rolling with Perez as the primary catcher in 2016 is not an ideal situation, but his improvement in the batter’s box makes that option more palatable than it seemed a couple months ago.
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP MAKING FEATHERSTON BUNT
This might be apocryphal, but Taylor Featherston is probably the worst bunter in baseball of players that are routinely asked to bunt (excluding pitchers). I haven’t been keeping track and I don’t know how to look up such a thing as failed sacrifices, but over and over again since taking over primary second base duties, Featherston has been asked to sacrifice a man over and failed. The same happened Wednesday. And yet, Mike Scioscia continues to ask Featherston to bunt. I get he’s a crap hitter, but it’s worth trying to let him get on base if he’s just going to give away an out to begin regardless. He’s even batting .197 in September, which actually represents an uptick for him.
Sacrifice bunting is almost always a bad idea. I get the temptation to ask Featherston to bunt because he swings a dandelion at the plate. But it would help if he could actually, ya know, bunt.
Tal’s Hill, 2000-2015
Since the Astros are newbies to the American League the Angels didn’t have many opportunities to play at Minute Maid Park, but this series marked the last time they would have to encounter Tal’s Hill, the mound in dead center field. (This is assuming the Angels don’t play a one-game playoff at Minute Maid, which we would all be down for.) The hill will be plowed before next season, certainly saving some future center fielder’s knee ligaments—hopefully ancient Enron curses that are surely buried inside aren’t released upon the greater Houston metropolis. Earlier this season, Grant Brisbee wrote why Tal’s Hill was the single dumbest and best architectural quirk in baseball. The hill certainly makes no sense from a baseball standpoint. It’s the actualized embodiment of a Looney Tunes cartoon, with Major League players playing the role of Wile E. Coyote tripping/falling/running into the flag pole. I love it all the same. Watching world class athletes tumble around is endlessly endearing.
The hill often tooketh from batters—or uncoordinated fielders—but the hill gaveth the Angels one last time on Tuesday night in the ninth inning, when Carlos Correa crushed a baseball to dead center that would have been a game-tying homer in any other park…except this one. The ball hit the base of the wall and rolled down the hill like an irritating ant hill in mini golf. Trout was even able to get the ball in quick enough to hold Correa to a double. Tal’s Hill saved the Angels’ dim playoff hopes as much as any player in an Angel uniform this week.
RIP Tal’s Hill.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SiylvmFI_8]
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