Monday, March 31, 2008

Angels 2;Twins 3

Well, they weren't going to win all of them. Jered Weaver threw too many pitches and struggled to stay ahead at times. The big bats provided absolutely nothing. Garret Anderson misplayed two balls in left field. And that's the kind of thing that happens on opening day.

I'm not really going to worry about this one too much. The Angels have struggled for years against soft tossing junkballers, which is basically what Livan Hernandez has become. He threw only 84 pitches in seven innings, and far too often the Angel hitters got themselves out. On the flipside, Jered Weaver took 106 pitches to get through six and third, 41 of those were out of the strike zone. He did strike out five against two walks (the Angels walked zero times, surprise surprise). Weaver oscillated between sharp and shaky. Add that to the poor defense on the two popups to shallow left, and the Twins got just enough.

There were a couple bright spots. Darren Oliver came in and got two outs on four pitches. Casey Kotchman singled three times, and Chone Figgins added two hits of his own.

Another close one with the Twins. This one didn't go the Angels' way. That's why there's a tomorrow.

1 comment:

waters96 said...

It's true, guys like Livan give us problems, except in the 7th game of the World Series, when we seem to be able to handle guys like Livan - wait, I believe that was Livan we slapped around that time. It still feels good to think about that.