The Angels weathered the injuries to their key starters for the first few weeks of the season, but those injuries are finally starting to catch up with them. To this point, the Angels’ failures could be blamed on the offense, defense, and/or relief corps, but the starters had stepped it up for the most part. As of tonight, the Angels have used eight starters in 17 games. Anthony Ortega got the call tonight, making his major league debut. A two out, three run home run by Russel Branyan served as his welcome to the big leagues.
Ortega lasted five and allowed five runs, four earned. Jason Bulger turned back into a pumpkin, allowing four runs in his only inning of work. Once again, Justin Speier is proving to be the Angels best reliever. He pitched two innings and allowed only one hit, dropping his ERA to 2.35. Daniel Davidson is doing his best Mike Holtz impersonation, playing the role of the left hander who can’t get lefties out.
With the bats, the Angels closed the lead that Seattle took on the Branyan homer to 3-2 before the pitching staff handed those runs back. They otherwise never really threatened. Kendry Morales hit his second homer of the season, and came roughly ten feet from his third in the bottom of the ninth, which would have tied the game. Bobby Abreu delivered two more hits, and two RBIs. Howie Kendrick, dropped to ninth in the order, seems to be squaring the ball up a bit better lately. After going 34 games without a double, he has three in his last three games, including two tonight. Torii Hunter homered again, and continues to be the lone consistent power threat.
Thoughts on the game:
- Interesting moment in the third inning when Gary Matthews hit a ground rule double on a ball that a fan caught while reaching over the wall in right center field. It’s the first time at Angel Stadium that the umpires required a video review. They made the correct call.
- While Howie Kendrick appears to be doing a bit better at the plate, he’s been a butcher in the field so far. I know he’s not supposed to be a gold glover, but honestly, I’ve been very disappointed in his defense.
- Hate to call a game in April a must win, and in all honesty, tomorrow’s game probably doesn’t fit into that category, but the Angels could fall 6.5 games behind the Mariners if they don’t salvage one win in this series.
Tags: Anthony Ortega, Bobby Abreu, Daniel Davidson, Gary Matthews Jr., Howie Kendrick, Justin Speier, Kendry Morales, Torii Hunter
Fully Clips
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Lasorda's Lair
Reign of Troy
Rink Royalty
and still no Brandon Wood….
it was nice to see the offense actually get more than one extra-base hit, too, but there’s still something missing.
maybe it’s just me, but they don’t seem to be playing like a team right now. there seems to be some unspoken distance.
I went to the game last night so I wanted to make a couple observations as well.
1.) Why did Brandon Wood get called up from AAA to sit on the bench? Makes no sense. At least call him up to platoon at the very least.
2.) They actually kicked the fan out of the game for his interference on Gary Matthews Jr.’s ground rule double in the third. A rather surprising occurrence because you can see in the picture that he didn’t make a huge attempt to steal the ball away from Ichiro.
3.) The Angel fans really left early. I know the team was down 9-3 but most of the fans left before the seventh inning stretch. I would understand if this was a Tuesday night and it was a 7:00 start, but it was a Saturday game at 6:05. It was pathetic.
4.) The rally monkey stuff needs to die down. Some of the intro videos for the rally monkey were pathetic. One started out like a horror film, quickly cutting to some lady in the shower, where the rally monkey comes in and scares her. It was almost like an intro to a bad 70s porno or something. For a second, I wished I was a Dodgers fan. It was so bad.
5.) Before the game, I wasn’t too pleased with the Angels for obvious reasons, but I left with some positives in mind. First off, the bullpen wasn’t too bad, and after last night, they seem to be headed in the right direction. But most of all, the offense scored eight runs. Many of those were on extra base hits. Imagine how good this team could be with Brandon Wood and Vladimir Guerrero playing everyday.