Lost Weekend - Sox 6; Angels 5

Another game against the Sox, another loss, and is increasingly becoming the case, another loss helped along by completely icompetent umpiring.

Ervin Santana was not very good today. He had a crazy preoccupation with base runners, which really caused him to lose his effectiveness. He alllowed five runs in seven innings, and though he only walked one, it seemed like he was in trouble quite a bit (he also hit Joe Crede's bat, which apparently gets you a trip to first base these days). Despite his struggles, the Angels had chances to win. Santana gave back a 2-0 first inning lead, then blew a 5-3 lead in the sixth with help second base dipshit umpire Greg Gibson. Rob Machowiak singled (yes, singled) to left center field. Upon sliding into second, he overslid the bag, where he was tagged by Adam Kennedy on two separate parts of his anatomy. But in Greg Gibson's world, you're apparently allowed to overslide second much like you're allowed to overrun first. Machowiak was allowed to stay at second, and later scored the tying run. It stayed that way, thanks in part to a baserunning miscue by Tim Salmon in the bottom of the sixth, until a single by Chris Widger, a stolen base by Pablo Ozuna, a sac bunt by Scott Podsednik, and a wild pitch by Shields did the damage and allowed the winning run to score.

Right now, like most of last season, the Angels aren't very good. They can beat up on bad and middle of the road teams, but they're going to get killed by good teams, as they were this weekend. The offense is offensive, and the pitchers have essentially no margin for error. That's not recipe for success. The schedule doesn't get any easier with two versus Oakland before trips to Detroit, Toronto, and Chicago. I think a 4-7 over that stretch is actually setting the bar pretty high at this point. This season could get real ugly real quick.