Welcome to the show, Tyler Chatwood. You have joined the ranks of all the Angel starters before you, those who have pitched some decent ball only to have the offense take a day off, and leave them stranded and lonely out on the mound. Now I'm not going to go as far as most and say that Chat looked "awesome despite the loss." I'm going to say that he looked serviceable, and could have pitched well enough to win. He didn't pitch quite as well as Mitch Talbot, though, as the Tribe hurler silenced the Halo bats well into the ninth.
Tyler finished 5 innings of 4 run ball, walking four, and punching out three. The runs were scored in the first and second innings, all on long balls. I think the media was impressed with Chattie because he turned it around and pitched three shutout innings after the rough start, which is a really positive sign for such a young guy. He finished with 112 pitches, 64% of them for strikes. He got 7 groundouts and 3 flyouts, which shows how much he settled down after the bumpy start, but the run support just wasn't there. He did, however, get support from the bullpen.
Recently called up Francisco Rodriguez pitched two innings of shutout ball. Scott Downs, making his Halo debut off the DL, pitched a perfect eighth, needing just 8 pitches to finish off his lone inning. Finally, my boy Aussie Rich Thompson took 11 pitches to finish off his perfect inning, lowering his ERA to 1.59 to start the season. It was a big deal to have those three guys perform so well out of the 'pen, even if it didn't lead us to victory.
All those positives float away, though, when you lose 0-4 to a bunch of guys with an overly stiff "C" on their new (and by new, I mean old) caps. Really, did anyone else think the "C" looked a little weird? Either way, the Angels just weren't hitting. The team got 5 hits, and got punched out 5 times, with not a single player having a multi-hit game. Bobby "El Comedulce" Abreu was the only player you could call an offensive hero, as he finished 1 for 2 with 2 walks. He sure was stranded out there, though. The Halos left 6 on base, went 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position, and watched Torii Hunter ground into a double play. It wasn't an inspired performance, to say the least.
What went wrong? What was it about the offense that prevented Tyler Chatwood from getting any support out there? Well, I don't really want to be that guy, but Vernon Wells sure seems unable to get it going this season. Another 0 for 4 game dropped The Contract's batting average to .091, and if you think his OBP will make you feel better, you're wrong (.149). Wells needs to come around. I expected him to have a down season, but not a Manny-Ramirez's-career-in-Tampa-Bay kind of down season. I'm still confident that he'll finish around like .265 with 15-20 jacks and 75ish RBI, but I'm wondering when he's going to start working toward that.
In an attempt to show that I'm not afraid to step up and say I was wrong, I will also throw Peter Bourjos under the bus. He had been doing at least so-so, but some attention has to be paid to his down start here in 2011, 10 games in. Saint Peter went 0 for 3 in last night's contest, preventing our fastest runner (himself) from getting himself on the basepaths, and dropped his average to .212 to start the season. With men on base, he's hitting .182 so far this year. I made a very loud announcement that Bourjos would make an impact this year beyond what the mainstream media was predicting, and thus far, I'm wrong. In 10 games, he has just 1 stolen base. That's even more of an indication of his lack of performance than his batting stats. Come on Speedy Pete, pick it up.
Tyler is going to get one more shot, filling in for Piñero one more time, I guess. I can only hope that the bats can put something together for the kid the next time around.
Back to .500, the 5-5 Angels are 3.5 games back of the red hot Rangers (9-2), are dead tied with the 5-5 A's, and still lead the 3-7 Mariners by 2, despite the M's impressive comeback against the Jays last night. And yes, it was really, really impressive.
Not as impressive as the Indians, though, as their 8-2 start is making all the headlines outside of Boston. They are back at The Stadium tonight with Fausto "Remember When I Was The Next Big Thing?" Carmona (0-1, 9.00) facing off against Dan Haren (2-0, 1.15). The Indians are rolling with an eight game winning streak, and AL Co-Player of the Week Asdrubal Cabrera (that sounds weird to say) is leading the way. He'll have to be on top of his game if he wants to help his team stay hot against The Chessmaster. Dan Haren is looking like he's at the top of his game this season, and hopefully he can keep the good times rolling against the Tribe.
Come on OC, give us a couple of errors, or something.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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