Post-Game Report: Angels vs. Athletics (7/11/08)

On one hand, I am frustrated that the Angels were thoroughly embarrassed by their divisional rival, the Oakland A’s, but on the other hand, at least I was smart enough to add Sean Gallagher to my fantasy team Thursday night. 

Gallagher torched the Halos’ batters by pitching seven strong innings, while allowing just two runs and striking out seven. I am sure Oakland fans are pretty excited with the prospect of Gallagher continuing to improve and becoming one of the better pitchers in the A.L. He certainly has the stuff to do that.

While the Angels witnessed one strong pitching performance from Gallagher, they watched their own starter Jon Garland struggle immensely on Friday night. Jeff WeaverGarland certainly didn’t bring his best stuff to McAfee, as he allowed seven runs on ten hits in just 2.2 innings of work.

With a 9-2 loss to the A’s, it’s hard to pick the top 3 performers, but I’ll try…  

Top 3 Angel performers

1) While Garland and Justin Speier struggled at the mound, reliever Darren O’Day performed quite well in four innings of work. O’Day went in for Speir at the start of the fifth and didn’t allow a run for the rest of the game. His performance kept the Angels within striking range, but the offense never came through.

2) Chone Figgins had a solid night, as his RBI triple in the top of the third scored Erick Aybar and tied the game at one run. He later scored from third on a sacrifice fly from Casey Kotchman, which gave the Angels a 2-1 lead.

3) Aybar had a pretty solid game overall, as he went 1-2 with a run scored in the third inning. He also had some pretty spectacular defensive  plays.

Angels Jeff Weaver of the Day (Note: JTD denotes the Angel that played the poorest): For a moment, I actually thought that Jon Garland was Jeff Weaver, as he allowed seven runs on ten hits in just 2.2 innings of work. Ugly!

Play of the Game: Casey Kotchman’s sacrifice fly, which scored Figgins, gave the Angels a 2-1 lead. At the point, many people, including myself, expected the Angels to capitalize on it and eventually win the game. I guess that didn’t happen.

What to look for next game: Ervin Santana has done surprisingly well away from Angel Stadium this year so we’ll see if the trend continues tonight.

Game is Saturday @ 6:05 PM (KCOP 13).

Tags: Casey Kotchman, Chone Figgins, Erick Aybar, Ervin Santana