Weekend Rewind: You Can’t Win Them All – Twins @ Angels

Way to ruin for everyone, Ervin Santana.  The Angels were one game away from a four-game sweep of the Twinkies and extending their winning streak to nine before Ervin Santana imploded (again) on Sunday to spoil the fun.  Oh, well, you can’t win them all.

Two out of three ain’t bad, but three out of four is even better.  Suck it, Meat Loaf.

Santana’s rough outing aside, the weekend was a rousing success for the Halos who started the weekend off with a wire-to-wire win (finally) headlined by a dazzling performance from John Lackey that would have been even better if he could have just figured out a way to keep Joe Mauer in the park (at least it wasn’t Jason Kubel).  But the Angels were back on the comeback trail on Saturday using a nine-run inning to erase an early deficit and ensure that the lucky horseshoe up Matt Palmer’s ass was still in working order with him moving to 8-1 on the season with yet another unbelievable showing of run support behind him.

Losing on Sunday should hardly spoil the Angels’ recent run of success but a poor outing by Ervin Santana is at least cause for a little bit of drizzle on their parade.  Santana’s fourth inning meltdown not only gave the Twinkies a lead that even the Angels couldn’t overcome but also put some additional pressure on the front office to acquire another reliable starting pitcher to help the Angels survive in the face of inconsistent efforts from Santana and consistently awful efforts from Joe Saunders.  In retrospect, the Sunday loss could actually be a good thing since it gives Angel management a not-so-subtle reminder that this team is not perfect and that acquiring reinforcements isn’t just a luxury but rather a necessity.

Good News:

• Howie Kendrick collected five hits over the weekend and is certainly going to make things interesting for Mike Scioscia when it comes to filling out his line-up card once Torii Hunter, Vladimir Guerrero and Juan Rivera return to the line-up.  Kendrick is hitting the ball with authority and deserves a regular job but Erick Aybar and Maicer Izturis are playing just as well, if not better.  This is a good problem to have.
• You know the Angels are going good when even Robb Quinlan is hitting clutch homers.

Bad News:

• Thanks for coming out, Shane Loux.  If (hopefully when) the Angels acquire some bullpen help they were going to be faced with a tough decision on who to send down to the minors.  Loux made that decision a whole lot easier by giving up three runs in each of his two appearances this weekend.
• I can’t wait for what excuse the Angels come up with for Santana’s latest lousy start.  He was just starting to look good too.  Does anyone have J.P. Ricciardi’s phone number?

Halo Hero:

• John Lackey

Part of the reason the Halos have been coming from behind so much lately is because their starting pitching has been decidedly mediocre.  Big John changed all on Saturday by allowing just four hits and two runs over 7.2 innings of work.  Finally the Angels have their ace back.  Now he’s just got to work on covering first base without tripping over it (twice).