Joe Mauer may have been solid, but it was the Angels once against pulling out all the stops against the Twins, beating them up 6-3 this time around, for their seventh straight win. The Angels played long ball to get their runs (including one from each of our catchers), and John Lackey continued his recent dominance in the Friday night victory.
Let's talk about why John Lackey won this game: 1) He held lefties to a .143 batting average in the match. 2) Lack retired the leadoff batter of every single inning he pitched. 3) He had a 93% success rate throwing one of his first two pitches for strikes. 4) He got the Twins to swing and miss six times thanks to his curveball. He may not have been able to stop Joe Mauer, but he did enough to win the game in style. Gigantic John finished the game with 7.67 innings of 2 run ball, punching out just three, but only allowing six to reach base (4 hits and 2 walks). He gave up two bombs (both Joe Mauer solo shots), and was on lock down outside of that. Kevin Jepsen, who was crowned the new eighth inning man in the "Angels Live" pre game show, pitched 1.3 innings of 1 run ball in relief with 3 Ks to bring the Angels home. Lackey was glad to put together another solid run, bringing his #1 type starts to his last three outings. In the last three games, John has now pitched 23.67 innings of 4 run ball with 15 punch outs. The Halos have now won in five of his last six starts, and his 6-4 record and 4.22 ERA is starting to look more like the $10 million hurler we've come to expect. After the game, Lackey tried to solidify his desire to be "the pitcher" for the squad, "We need a starter to step up and pitch well for this team, more than anything. We need somebody to take the reins and get it moving here." The way he's going lately, I feel like that "somebody" may be him.
The Angels offense was clearly not scared off by former solid starter Francisco Liriano (now 4-10 with a 5.56 ERA). The Angels tagged 6 runs on 9 hits, thanks to three gigantic jacks. It was a Robb Quinlan's two run job in the second, Jeff Mathis' solo job in fifth, and Mike Napoli's three run massacre in the sixth that did the Twins in. Despite all of that, the VIP club was small last night, with Bobby Abreu (2 for 4 with 1 run), and my main man Howie "The Pinball Wizard" Kendrick continuing his mighty run (3 for 4 with 1 run). Howie is now hitting a respectable .262 on the year, and I think he deserves getting into the spotlight. HK-47 has clearly been improving since getting called back up from his trip down to SLC, and recently he has been stellar. July 16 was the last game where he went hitless (and even then, he scored a run), and he has put together 5 multi-hit games in his last 9. He has hit 3/2/2/2/1/1 over his last 6, and has boosted his batting average to .556 over the last 7 days. Howie is hitting .383 in July, which is miles above his next best month this year (.269 in June), and he has really turned it up since the All-Star break (.458). His best kept secret may be that he is an amazing #5 hitter for the Red Hats (.667/.667/1.111), and with runners in scoring position his average is +.023 compared to when nobody is on. The rest down at AAA may actually have done him well. Noticeable 0'fers in last nights game go out to Figgy (0 for 4, .310), GMJ (0 for 4, .231), and Brandon Wood (0 for 2, .160, but zero Ks!).
The game 2 win pushes the Angels to 57-38 on the season (just 1 win away from 20 over .500!). Texas is still 3.5 back, with Seattle trailing by 6.5, and Oakland hanging back by a really big 17. Next up for the Angels is the penultimate game of this series against the Twins, and it is an interesting one in terms of starting pitching. After declaring Sean O'Sullivan as the fifth start (and he boosted his record to 3-0 in his last start), the Angels demoted Sully to AAA and are calling on Matt Palmer (7-1, 4.75) to come in and get the job done. Why would they pick SOS to fill in, and then only give him one start? Here is the rundown on the transaction wire: 7/20/09: Angels option C Bobby Wilson back to AAA and call up Sully to start, 7/22/09: They send Sully back to AAA, and call up Terry "Super Stud" Evans to fill in as backup OF with Vlad, Torii, and Juan all hurt, and 7/24/09: They send Evans back to the SLC and call up bullpen help in the form of Robert "Moose" Mosebach, and decide to start Palmer in Sully's place. It's all very interesting, because you would guess that you would want to have somebody get used to their role either starting or in the 'pen, rather than moving them into different roles over and over again. I wonder what they're thinking. Or, more accurately, I wonder what they aren't telling us. Either way, it is nice to have the oft talking about (on this blog) Moose up here for relief, and I'm glad that Palmer gets another chance to shine. He'll be opposing Twins starter and Ada, OK native Nick Blackburn (8-4, 3.44). Black has had a really nice season, but lately he has hit a small rough patch. The Twins are 3-5 in his last 8 starts, and he gave up 7 runs in 5 innings to Oakland in his last outing. Last time out, against the Angels, he went 6.3 innings of 4 run ball, allowing a BAA of .308, and he is 3-4 with a 4.06 ERA in away games overall this year. However, he is amazing during the day here in '09 (4-1, 2.03), and that sunshine up in Anaheim could play a factor.
Well, today's game starts in 2 minutes, so let's flip on the Big Fox and enjoy.
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