It's a Doug Fister reference, it's not gross. The Angels scored early and often, fighting off a middle of the game comeback, and cruised to an 8-3 win over last place Seattle last night. I guess the triumphant march back to first place in the AL West has begun.
J-Balls Piñata continued to prove my case, as he went 7 innings of 3 run ball. Keep in mind, of course, that he was going against the M's, but it was still a nice start. Ichiro got a bases clearing double off Piñero, and other than that it was lockdown. The interesting thing was that Joel's ground ball to fly ball ratio was 9-8, which is unlike him. But, it got the job done. Big Country and Low Hat finished the M's off with 2 combined innings of shuout ball to start the second half off right.
Talking about starting the second half off right, the offense produced to get out of their recent funk. The top and bottom of the order were nailing the ball, with Aybar, Kendrick, and Abreu combining for 7 hits, and Rivera, McAnulty, and Mathis combining for 7 hits as well. Torii was a mysterious 0 for 5 (the only hitless starter) but it was fine that he took the day off, as his coworkers were there to bang it out. LSF's Man of the Match award clearly goes to Erick Aybar, as he started the second half charge with a 3 for 5 evening with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored. It's so nice to see EA perform at the top of the order for us. Just keep it up. By the way, Jeff "Fluke" Mathis (according to ESPN's Mark Saxon) went 3 for 4 and backstopped an amazing game. Face! Thank goodness Cliff Lee got traded to the Rangers, because this would have been his start.
Some other notes from this game that I enjoyed:
+Joel is now the first Halo starter to get to 10 wins...take that Weaver.
+Figgins went 0 for 4, Kotchman didn't even start (but earned a pinch hit walk), and Kotch's replacement (the overrated) Justin Smoak went 0 for 4 with 3 Ks. He sucks.
+Getting thrown out at home by Ichiro also sucks.
At 48-44, my Halos are stil 4.5 games off the Rangers after Texas beat Boston 7-2 last night, but we still have 70 chances to make up the difference. Tonight we continue our four gamer with Seattle, and it's a masterpiece in the making. All Star Jered Weaver (8-5, 3.20) goes toe to toe with Felix "Even He's Tired Of His Tatts" Hernandez (7-5, 2.88). In seven career home starts against Seattle, Big Baby Caveman is 5-0 with a 2.30 ERA. However, King Felix has been sharp in his last six overall, going 4-0 with a 1.39 ERA. Maybe he'll be so bummed about missing Tuesday's All Star game that he'll pitch terribly? He is just 4-6 with a 4.40 ERA in 18 career starts against us. Tonight, Ichiro's 14 game hitting streak will reach it's end. Write it down.
Before I end this one, I'd like to address the newest Angel trade rumor, involving Derrek Lee of the Cubs. The rumor mill doesn't really cough up the actual possible deal, but based on other chatter, you'd have to imagine that Mike Napoli and a prospect would be in the mix. Derrek Lee would be just a rental player, with his contract ending this season, and the rumor says that this would match up for the Halos well, as most believe that we'll be going hard after Carl Crawford in the offseason (man, that would be cool) while shifting Abreu to the DH role full time. This season, though, Lee is hitting just .239/11/38 (compared to .280/17/57 this time last year). A little weird to see this dip in a contract year, right? However, you know that Lee is a solid player, would clearly be an upgrade over Naps at 1B (not to mention freeing up our catcher log jam), and he is a career .462 hitter with 2 bombs at Angel stadium (albeit in just 3 games). So, for me, it's a toss up. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that Lee is the answer for the rest of the year, and that he's going to be some kind of super stud in the second half. Though, a move like this could energize the team. We still have a couple of weeks to see what else pops up while we contemplate. What do you think?
Let's bang out another win tonight, boys.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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