For a minute there, it looked like the frustratingly mediocre Angels of the season’s first three months were making an unwelcome comeback. The first two games of the series against the Rangers included all the greatest hits of the start of the season: baserunning blunders, defensive miscues, zero offense outside of Mike Trout, and a quality start by an opposing starter who by all accounts should’ve been crushed. But then the rubber game happened, and sanity was restored.
Well, it was once the fourth inning passed, at least. The near-injuries to Mike Trout and Erick Aybar that half-inning were enough to give one a coronary. That Matt Joyce, whose time with the organization will probably end in the next 24 hours, was the only one to not return to the field after that inning was some remarkably good fortune for the Angels.
Not to say the Joyce injury was fortunate; brain trauma of any kind is scary stuff. That Joyce doesn’t remember walking off the field after the collision and that he answered only half of the concussion test questions correctly tells you he got licked pretty good and could feel aftereffects for quite some time. I sincerely hope he makes a quick, full recovery and that the collision has no impact on his career and life going forward. Even with the very real concern for Joyce’s cognitive health, it is difficult not to find it at least a little ironic that his disappointing tenure with the Angels might very well end with a literal kick in the face. Does that make me a terrible person? Probably.
Anyway, thanks mostly to Trout entering God Mode over the weekend (8-for-12, 3 dingers) the Halos now sit a game up on the Astros as they head into Houston for easily the biggest series of the season.
Boxscore Breakdowns
Series Takeaways
1) Andrew Heaney Entering Rarified Air
Andrew Heaney has now made six appearances as a Halo, and has six quality starts to show for it. He is just the fifth pitcher in franchise history to start his Angels career with six or more quality starts, and only the second to do so as a rookie.
The other rookie was, of course, Jered Weaver in his legendary 2006. Weaver went a full nine starts (spread over four months for some reason) before surrendering more than three runs in an outing, matching the franchise record set by Bill Singer in 1973. Weaver would go on to finish the year with an 11–2 record and a 2.56 ERA in 123 innings, earning him a fifth-place finish in the AL Rookie of the Year voting.
Heaney still has a ways to go to match Weaver’s debut season, but he’s certainly headed in the right direction. The southpaw had probably his roughest outing Sunday afternoon—hitting two batters and needing a season-high 30 pitches to get through the fourth inning—but still managed to escape mostly unscathed thanks to seven ground-ball outs and a couple of timely pop-ups. If that is what a “wild” start looks like from Heaney, then he’s gonna be more than fine, even when the BABIP regression monsters come a-calling.
A huge part of Heaney’s early success has been the result of his ability to avoid free passes. With less than stellar command on Sunday, Heaney still managed to allow just one base on balls. In only one of his six starts thus far has the left-hander walked more than one batter; that night, June 30, he walked two. (The horror!) Heaney’s ability to consistently pound the zone puts him in lofty company again with regard to debuts. No Angels starter this century has put together a longer streak of walk-sparse appearances to start his career in Anaheim—Dan Haren, Jered Weaver, and Jeff Weaver are all tied with Heaney at six. Bert Blyleven holds the franchise record at 21(!).
2) Bullpen Meltdowns Have Been Mostly Well-Timed
Saturday night’s bullpen meltdown marked just the eighth time this season that an Angels reliever took a loss—that’s the second fewest in baseball—and the first time since June 3, more than 40 games ago. As much as we may lament this bullpen not being the dominant force that was last year’s late-season crew, they have been very good since the start of June, the last two nights notwithstanding. While the group remains middling in regards to things like ERA (14th), FIP (9th), and WAR (11th), they do lead MLB in one important category.
Meltdowns and it’s partner, Shutdowns, were devised by Tom Tango as a means to get a better bearing on an individual reliever’s contributions to a team’s chances of winning a game, apart from the rules that limit saves and holds. If a reliever increases his team’s win probability by 6% or more, he gets a Shutdown; if he decreases his team’s win probability by 6% or more, he gets a Meltdown. Pretty straightforward.
Like ERA and the rest, the Angels are in the middle of the pack (15th) so far as Shutdowns go. Their Meltdown total of 26, however, is the lowest in baseball. It is 34 shy (!!!) of the MLB-worst Braves ‘pen and one better than the living legend that is the Royals relief corps. Last year at this time the Angels had 38.
What this means is that while the bullpen is giving up too many runs to be considered elite—see: their ERA, RE24, etc.—most of their bad nights have been like Huston Street’s ninth inning Sunday (i.e. low leverage) rather than Joe Smith’s eighth inning on Saturday (high leverage). In other words, they’ve been fortunate that most of their mini-implosions have come in games that were already out of hand in one way or another. Case(s) in point: Street’s last four runs allowed have come in blowout games; for all Mike Morin’s issues this year, only two of his appearances are Meltdowns; Cam Bedrosian somehow has zero Meltdowns on the year.
What’s more, the guys who contributed to many of the club’s early-season meltdowns—Vinnie Pestano, Jose Alvarez, Cesar Ramos, and Fernando Salas—have either been bumped out of the bullpen completely or relegated primarily to low-leverage duty, which helps explain how the club had 19 Meltdowns in April and May but just seven more since the start of June. While there are still problem spots here and there, the bullpen is now humming along pretty well and should only improve once Cory Rasmus is stretched out enough to rejoin the team.
3) Mike Trout, Triple-Crown Candidate?
Mike Trout, right now:
BA: .315 (5th)
HR: 31 (1st)
RBI: 64 (5th)
Mike Trout has a very real chance of becoming the American League’s second Triple Crown winner of the last 50 years. His home-run power has become otherworldly this year—he’s hitting dingers every 11.6 at-bats—so at least that title is probably in the bag, barring some catastrophic streak of warning-track fly balls.
Trout has one RBI title to his name already as a No. 2 hitter, but should have a much easier time coming by runners to drive in now that he’s batting exclusively out of the three hole. His 64 RBI is currently fifth in the AL, but only three behind league-leader Josh Donaldson. So long as Kole Calhoun, Johnny Giavotella, and [INSERT TRADE ACQUISITION HERE] get on base at an average clip, Trout should be in the hunt for his second straight RBI crown.
The biggest hurdle between Trout and the Triple Crown will likely be his batting average. Trout has cut back on his strikeouts by a little more than three percentage points this season, but he’s still well shy of the K rates that helped him bat .326 and .323, respectively, in his first two full seasons. The one thing to keep an eye on here, assuming his K% remains static, is whether or not his BABIP continues to climb. Right now it sits at .349, which is well above average (and exactly what he posted in 2014) but also a good 30 points below the mark he put up in his previous .300 seasons. If Trout can beat out a few more infield hits here and there and work a little more luck on his line drives, then he might be able to catch Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and company.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
