Weekend Rewind: Those Darn Rookies – Angels Drop Two to Toronto

So have we learned our lesson about starting too many unproven rookies yet?  After Sean O’Sullivan and Trevor Bell both failed to escape the second inning in their respective starts, I certainly hope so.

It isn’t a good thing when your starter can count the number of outs he got on one hand.

Friday’s game started with Sean O’Sullivan putting the Angels in a 4-0 hole that the Angels couldn’t quite dig their way out of and ended with O’Sullivan cramming his butt into a coach class seat on a direct flight to Salt Lake City.  In between, Matt Palmer and Jose Arredondo did all they could to keep the game close to give the comeback kid Angels an opportunity to salvage Sully’s disastrous start, but despite a furious ninth inning hitting frenzy, the Angels came up one base hit short.

Fortunately for the Angels, they actually remembered to start one veteran this weekend.  Ervin Santana played with fire, but still managed to turn in a quality start for the third straight time to pick up the win.  Vladimir Guerrero and Juan Rivera both busted out the whopping stick to back up Santana’s effort, but ended up using up all the extra runs that they could’ve used in Sunday’s finale.

Of course, the Angels might not have needed many runs at all had they opted to start someone other than Trevor Bell who got tuned up by Toronto for six runs in 1.2 innings of “work.”  Bell’s bumbling were simply too much for the Halos to even feign a comeback effort at, resulting in our boys unexpectedly dropping the series to what had looked like a harmless opponent when they first showed up.  I think it is safe to say that a lot is riding on Joe Saunders’ shoulder feeling a whole lot better when he rejoins the rotation later this week.

Good News:

• Matt Palmer pitched well in long relief for O’Sullivan, which always seems to be the case for Palmer.  You have to think that it was good enough to at least make Mike Scioscia think about using Palmer in place of Bell the next time through the rotation.
• The Angel offense certainly got slowed down over the weekend, but it sure wasn’t Vladimir Guerrero’s fault.  He just keeps getting better and better.  He collected six hits and another home run in the series.  I, for one, had long worried that his power surge after coming off the DL a few weeks ago would just be a final flash in the pan for Super Vlad, but he certainly seems like he really is the Vlad of old and going to stay that way.

Bad News:

• The Angels missed a golden opportunity to create some real space in the AL West with the Rangers dropping two this weekend as well.  Now the Halos are going up against the AL Central leading Tigers who will be much, much tougher than the Jays.

Halo Anti-Hero of the Weekend:

• Mike Butcher

I hate to do it to Butch, but he is in charge of keeping the rookie pitchers on the right path and he let them both get away this weekend.  I know there is only so much he can do, but he can certainly do better than both rooks getting knocked out so early against a weak opponent.