Don't worry, I'm still only cautiously optimistic after taking the 2-0 lead against Boston (remember, out of the four times in baseball history that a team has come back from being down 0-2 in the DS, the Red Sox have done it twice), but I'm sure that our tragic pitcher Donnie Moore has to be getting ready to move from the emptiness of purgatory to the pearly gates of heaven. After all, the 1986 loss to the Sox led to his death and this whole hex business in the first place. With the Angels pitching their brains out for the second straight night, and getting enough offense to put the Red Sox to bed early, all of Halo Nation is on the collective edge of our seat with 1 win standing in between us and the Championship Series.
As in the first game, there were a whole heap of positives with the Angels game 2 win:
1) Jered "So Easy A Caveman Could Do It" Weaver came out and did his best John Lackey impression, and it worked! We were hoping that J Weav would be able to show the ESPN Nation (aka, the East Coast) that he is a quality young gun, and he did that with ease. Outside of a triple by Ellsbury and a RBI single by the Sox embattled catcher Victor Martinez in the fourth, Weaver was complete on point. I'm not sure if I can remember ever seeing him seem more in control of himself or of a game in his young career. It was fun to watch. He finished with 7.3 innings (sound familiar?) of 2 hit 1 run ball. He punched out 7 and walked only 2 in his 111 pitch effort. Despite allowing a run, he actually outdid Lack's game 1 performance, and made all of Long Beach proud. 22 outs for both of our starting pitchers. 2 wins.
2) Erick Aybar gets the monkey off his back for his previous ALDS performance. All year we'ce been talking about how Aybar is coming into his own, and really playing above anyone's expectations. However, he has always had that failed suicide bunt from the '08 playoffs hanging over his career. Last night, with a super clutch two run triple in the seventh, who finally became completely legit. EA Sports finished the night tied as the Angel with the most hits, going 2 for 3 with 2 RBI to raise his series batting average to a ridiculous .429. The RBIs came with 2 outs as well.
3) The Angels only left 3 runners on base! We put this out as an issue that the Angels needed to improve after their 8 left on base in Game 1, and they did it! The Red Hats were stepping up with runners on base and ripping the ball, going 2 for 4 with runners in scoring position. The Red Sox left 6 on, and that is with Weaver only allowing 4 to reach base. Take it Bean Town!
4) Again, Bobby Abreu and Kendry Morales were so important. In Game 1, El Comedulce went 0 for 0 with 4 walks to turn heads to something he has been doing all year long. In Friday night's edition, BA went 2 for 4 with a run, and it was a completely all important run in the fourth that erased the Red Sox run from the top half that gave them the lead. Abreu singled, and then went 1st to 3rd on the hit and run with Vladdy at the plate. That easily allowed Kendry Morales to step up and his a plenty deep sac fly to get us back even with Boston. Kendry came up, executed, and finished 0 for 2 with that severely underrated RBI.
5) Again, the bullpen was nuts. I was surprised when Darren Oliver was brought out of the pen, thinking that you just can't do the same thing every night and expect everything to go the same, can you? Well, DO pitched just 0.3 innings of 1 hit ball with 1 K, giving way to Kevin Jepsen to save the day. Jeps finished 0.67 innings of 1 hit ball, and gave way to Brian Fuentes. Tito Fuentes came out of the bullpen, and you have to admit that we all started praying that BFF would keep this thing together. Jeps had allowed a single, the Fuentes gave up a walk, allowing Mike Lowell to come to the plate representing the game tying run. Sweating. Shaking. Fuentes pulled off the heart poundingly exciting save to hold the game 4-1 in our favor. Phew.
Even though the Angels have played near perfect baseball (not really, but jumping out to a 2-0 lead against Boston makes me want to say that), there are a couple of things that we need to take away from this game 2 that we can improve on heading into our first game as the away team:
1) Who should be our catcher? Most fans were probably looking forward to Mike Napoli coming in and taking over the catching duties from my boy Jeff Mathis, who piloted game 1. Comparing the two: Mike Napoli finished 0 for 2 with 1 run scored, while the Mathismatician finished his game 1 for 3 with a single. It's questionable who did better, but it's completely insane to think that Napoli gives us some kind of huge edge over Mathis. Stop it.
2) We are slow starting against the starters. In game one we didn't strike against Lester until the fifth, last night off of Beckett we got a sac fly in the fourth but didn't really strike until the seventh. In playoff games like these, it is so important to get on board with some runs early and often, and even though it hasn't hurt us thus far, we should really try to put more pressure on early once we get to Massachusetts.
3) Anyone want to take a guess as to why we haven't been able to put pressure on early? Chone Figgins, who caught all kinds of crap for going 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts in game one, went 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts in game two. Are you kidding me Chone? What the heck is going on? Figgy had his best year ever as the Angels leadoff man, as we have frequently pointed out around the LSF, so what's with the choke job coming here in the playoffs? In the 2009 season, Figgs hit just .257 against Boston, well below his .298 overall season average, but he did have 8/9 BB/K (which he isn't even close to showing here in the ALDS). Again, it gets more important when we hit the road, we need Figgins to perform!
Just a couple of other quick points about this game that I'd like to point out. C.B. Buckner, who went from first base to home plate, was still doing his best to make a couple of interesting calls. A perfect Jered Weaver strikeout pitch comes to mind that both Pitch Trax and myself called a strike. C.B. is trying to do his best Doug Eddings impression here in the ALDS, and it's working. Also, the Red Sox have now had 4 or less hits in their last three post season games overall. It makes me laugh. It makes me happy.
Set your Sunday morning alarm clocks, and get your usual 9 am mass out of the way early, because the Angels and Red Sox are getting it on at 9:07 am to make way for the afternoon Patriots game. Way to have your priorties straight, Boston. You might not even have baseball after Sunday's lunch, and you're already worried about making the Pats happy? The Brady rule. As far as our pitching matchup goes, I think few would disagree that we have a big advantage on the mound in game 3. Scott Kazmir (10-9, 4.89) will take the mound against his well known foes and Clay Buchholz (7-4, 4.21). Buchholz has seemingly always been overrated to me, but I don't really watch the Red Sox very often. The Texas native went 3 innings if 6 run ball in his last game, 5 innings of 7 run ball the game before that. He has a nice streak prior to those two outings (against the Indians and the Blue Jays, by the way), but we may be getting this guy at the right time this weekend. Meanwhile, Scott Kazmir has easily been the most underrated trade deadline acquisition in all of baseball thanks to his thrillingly low amount of run support. That can't continue in the playoffs, right? In 6 starts with the Halos, Kaz went 2-2. However, he allowed just 7 earned runs in his 36.3 innings on the mound. Earlier this year, when he was with the Rays, the Kazmanian Devil went 5 innings of 3 run ball in a huge Tampa win (in May) , and went 6 innings of 1 run ball against the Red Sox way back in April. He knows these guys better than any other Angels pitcher, and that puts the ball in our court (cross sports reference!)
Sweep?
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