The Angels send Erv Daddy to the mound against Lester in about 30 minutes, and after last night's game, I'm not expecting a whole hell of a lot. Going down 17-8 against Boston, falling to 12-15, and seeing Joe Saunders (4 innings of 7 run ball), Matt Palmer (1.67 innings of 6 run ball), and Brian Stokes (1.3 innings of 4 run ball) suffer on the mound, made me decide it's time to suggest a crazy solution to the Angels pitching problems. After all, making crazy suggestions is what attracts people to the blog, right?
Let's start with a run down of the Halo starters and their simplest stats so far:
Jered Weaver (3-1, 3.19)
Scott Kazmir (2-1, 5.57)
Ervin Santana (1-2, 4.59)
Joel Piñero (2-3, 5.76)
Joe Saunders (1-5, 7.04)
Clearly, Weav is the "ace" on this staff. Despite being 1-2, Ervin has the most promise after that, with Kaz, Piñata, and Joe Joe rounding out the rankings. My feeling is this: Why should we watch a Major League starting pitching get jacked around severely game in and game out (Joe), when we could have an up and coming minor leaguer come up and do the same thing (or slightly better maybe) while gaining MLB experience and giving us a taste of the young talent waiting in the wings. If Howie can get sent down last year for not hitting well, why can't a pitcher (or three) get sent to SLC to "figure things out" and give a young baller a chance?
Down in SLC, our up and coming starters are looking like so:
Trevor Reckling (2-1, 4.85 in 5 starts)
Sean O'Sullivan (2-2, 4.91 in 5 starts)
Daniel Davidsn (2-0, 6.55 in 4 starts)
Trevor Bell (1-0, 2.13 in 2 starts)
That's just with taking a quick glance at AAA. We're not even delving into the lower levels, where the Halos have proven to be even more stacked on the mound this year. In low-A Cedar Rapids, Fabio Mesa pitched 5 innings of no hit ball in a game where three Kernels pitchers combined to no hit the A's affiliate (booyah!). Pil Joon Jang is the latest hit in Rancho after going 5 innings of shutout/3 hit ball in his latest outing. He's joined in the 909 by the likes of Manuarys Correa who went 7 innings of 1 run ball in his last outing to continue things. In AA Arkansas, Ryan Brasier threw a complete game no hitter last week with 3 Ks and 2 BBs. He seems to be the real deal (Angels in 2012?). Brasier is just 19 years of age. Not impressed? Read it again, it's pretty good stuff.
Back to my wacky solution. Rather than sending Joe Saunders and Joel Piñero to the DL (which you should be on the lookout for based on their recent crappy pitching, right?), I suggest we send them both down to AAA to "find their stuff again." Joe's 1-5 start is obviously cause for concern, and Piñata's slider can surely be found in the Yellow & Black of a Bees uni against some AAA bats, right. Call up two of our Bee pitchers to replace them for a couple of starts each. The most likely combo would be Sully and Bozo Bell, just based on the fact that they've been prominantly called up in the past, but maybe I'd like to see SOS and Reckling instead for now.
So, Mr. Reagins, what do you think? Do you feel like we should continue to watch Major League talent pitch like the Mission Viejo Dirt Puppies girl's softball team? Or, can we put them on a plane to Utah for 10 days and give a shot to some Minor League homies who have been doing well enough to get another chance?
Option two sounds fun.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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