Looking to at least walk away with one win in this AL West series, after a tough ten inning loss and a Seattle blowout, the Angels came to SafeCo on a mission Thursday night. With Joe Saunders on the hill, it was a little easier. Add in a thrilling one inning hit-fest, and you've got the perfect combination for a 5-1 Halo victory.
Joey Saunders was a man on a mission last night. In the fourth inning, Adrian Beltre grounded out to score Ichiro Suzuki, and outside of that, the V Tech graduate was on point. Finishing a great piece of work with 7 innings of 1 run, 3 hit ball, Saunders punched out 3 sailors and only allowed one free pass. And what do you know? The bullpen was out to get the job done as well! Jose Arredondo finished his 1 inning of perfect ball, and Brian Fuentes made some noise in his first non-save situation, going 1 inning of shutout ball with just 1 hit allowed. Really, really nice pitching last night. The offense was really looking so great to start things off, I'll tell you that. Anaheim, CA naitve (Upland High graduate) and MLB debut stud Chris Jakubauskas was a demon against the Angels for most of the time, finishing with a nice first outing (5.3 innings of 2 run ball, punching out 3), but it just wasn't good enough. The Angels started a hit machine in inning number 6 that just couldn't be stopped. With the bases jacked full of Angels, Mike "Medium Shells" Napoli singled home Abreu and Hunter to grab the lead. The unlikely GMJ singled next, scoring Kendry Morales from second and moving Nap to third. Karen's hatred, Juan Rivera, singled next to score Nap and move GMJ to second. Are you following this? It's 4-1 at this point, when another former Expo, Maicer Izturis made good on his AB. Ma$e singled home Matthews, and the Angels grabbed the ultimate 5-1 lead. Very nice!
Time for my take that of the post: The Angels offense have nailed down at least seven hits in every single one of their games this season, despite the media thinking the offense sucks. TAKE THAT! Wait, does that mean our pitching blows?
The win helped the Angels get back to a 2.5 game deficit behind the Mariners with their 4-5 record. We have been hitting the crap out of the ball, but somehow we still have a run differential of -3. Ah, RBI seems to be the problem. The M's are just totally ripping the whole damn thing up with their 7-3 record, leaving the entire AL West back in the dust with 4-5 records across the board. The Angels boarded a plain out of SeaTac Airport and headed straight for the beautiful spring destination of Minnesota where they'll go up against the Twinkies tonight. D-Mo takes the hill (1-0, 3.86) to try and keep his better-than-usual start to the season rolling against Ada, OK native Nick Blackburn (0-1, 5.73). Mr. Black is 0-2 against the Angels in his career with a 3.09 ERA, which is promising with our solid offense this year. Keep in mind that Michael Cuddyer is the only player on the Twins squad to ever get a hit against Dustin Moseley. If he sits, are we in line for a no on? Meanwhile, here is a list of players on the Angels with batting averages of .300+ against Blackburn: Bobby Abreu (.667), Chone Figgins (.667), Torii Hunter (.333), Howie Kendrick (.400), Gary Matthews Jr. (.333), Juan Rivera (.333), and Jeff Mathis (.500). Um, advantage Angels.
Meanwhile, tonight is game 2 in the series between the Canucks and the Blues, and I will be glued to the television with some kind of crazy Vancouver paraphernalia on. Hopefully I don't run into Nelly! Meanwhile, the Celtic (without KG) will be matching up with the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the playoffs. The C's lead the regular season series 2-1 against the Bulls, only losing to Chicago on March 17 (but I imagine there was some kind of St. Patrick's Day jinx). With KG possibly gone for the entire playoffs (although reports are conflicted on this one), can the Celtics get all the way to the Easter Conference Finals? Even without KG, you'd have to agree with me that nobody in the East outside of Cleveland can beat my boys from Austin, right?
1 comments:
Update: The Angels have reported that Vlad is headed to the DL with recovery time expected to be between 6-8 weeks. Boo.
Post a Comment