Angels lose again

We’re 12 games in and it’s already getting difficult to find things to write about the Angels. For a change, the pitching was actually adequate. Shane Loux lasted seven innings, allowing 3 runs on 10 hits, while not allowing a walk. He was not helped out by his defense. No one was charged with an error, but numerous plays went left unmade, at least one which led to a run. Loux allowed single runs in the second, fifth, and seventh innings, all of the manufactured varierty.

Their failures were overshadowed by the bullpen yesterday, but the offense was responsible for today’s loss. They were completely dominated by Glen Perkins for eight innings. He allowed one run on four hits, and needed only 84 pitches in his eight innings. That’s three pitches per batter faced. So much for all of the talk about how the Angels preached plate discpline this spring.

Thoughts on the game:

• Bobby Abreu had two of the Angels’ four hits, and one of their two walks. He and Torii Hunter remain the only Angels providing anything remotely close to what can be called production.
• Daniel Davidson debuted, and allowed one walk in an otherwise uneventful eighth inning. That automatically makes him the Angels’ best relief pitcher.
• The Angels get a much needed off day to regroup. They have to start turning it around now.

Angels 2; Twins 9

Once again an Angels starter gave a good effort. Once again, Torii Hunter provided the Angels with offense, giving them an early lead. And once again, a complete meltdown by the bullpen undid their efforts, as the Angels fell to Twins yet again.

Hunter’s team leading 4th home in the second inning put the Angels in front early, but it was all the Angels offense could muster. Bobby Abreu and Juan Rivera, the only other regulars besides Hunter hitting over .300, each delivered two hits.

Darren Oliver allowed one run, but after a long outing earlier in the week, and a spring spent preparing for a relief role, he was pulled after four innings. That’s where the trouble started. Kevin Jepsen was again unable to throw strikes consistently, walking the first two batters he faced before allowing three straight hits and three runs. He wasn’t done. He allowed a fourth run on a wild pitch, and was credited with a fifth run allowed (four earned) when Rafael Rodriguez threw a wild pitch. Rodriguez went on to allow three runs of his own in the sixth inning, one earned.

Thoughts on the game:

• The bullpen, everyone but Jose Arredondo and Darren Oliver, has been awful. With starters hurt, and with pitches limited in the young season, that’s a recipe for disaster.
• I look at this offense, and I don’t know where runs are going to come from. Torii Hunter can’t do it forever.

Twins 2; Angels 1

See also here.

Following a blistering July and first half of August, the Angels offense appears to be slowing down to June levels. They struggled to generate any offense last night, and they failed to exert any pressure on the Twins defense. They managed only one hit and three baserunners in the last eight innings of play last night, and wasted an otherwise solid performance from John Lackey. On the other side, Scott Baker threw eight innings of four hit baseball to lower his ERA to 3.74.

The Angels took the lead on a first inning home run from Mark Teixeira, his fifth since the trade. The Twins scratched out a run in the fifth inning to tie the score on a two out double from Nick Punto and an RBI single from Carlos Gomez. That was all the offense until the 12th inning.

In the 12th, Mike Scioscia made the inexplicable decision to turn to Justin Speier, who has now allowed at least one run in five of his last seven appearances (an 8.64 ERA over that span). Punto led off the 12th with a triple on a ball that, quite frankly, should have been caught by Torii Hunter. Two batters later, Denard Spann drove a single past the drawn in Chone Figgins for the eventual winning run.

Angels Top Three Performers:

1) John Lackey pitched eight innings of one run ball, allowing seven baserunners and striking out five. He pitched his way out of a jam in the eighth (which he helped create with his second error of the night), with some help from Howie Kendrick and Erick Aybar, who turned a nifty double play.

2) Mark Teixeira was the only Angel with more than one hit, and provided all the offense with his 5th home run as an Angel.

3) The bullpen (non-Speier division). Frankie Rodriguez, Scot Shields, and Darren Oliver combined for three scoreless innings. Each allowed a hit, and Shields walked a batter, but struck out two.

Jeff Weaver of the game:

Take your pick between Scioscia, for going with Speier when he could have extended Oliver (or gone with Arredondo), Speier (who's simply been awful this year), or Hunter, who in addition to failing to catch a very catchable ball, went 0-4 and left four runners on base.

What to look for tonight:

Joe Saunders goes after win number 15 again. The Twins counter with Glenn Perkins, a 25 year old Minnesota local with a very nice 10-3 record and a 4.17 ERA. He's struggled a bit in four of his last five starts, but tossed eight innings of scoreless baseball against the Yankees a week and a half ago. Garret Anderson looks to start a new hitting streak after having his 23 gamer snapped last night (though in all likelihood, he'll get the day off).

Game time: 7:05 PDT; Television: KCOP

Angels 5; Twins 4

Another one run game with the Twins, another win, and all of the gnashing of teeth after the season opening loss is forgotten for another day. Matthews, Hunter, and Napoli left the yard. Ervin looked fine, but ran into some trouble in the sixth. Oliver looked a little less than great. Speier appeared to show a little rust as well. Another double for Howie, who has a hit in every game so far this year.

The Angels almost made it out of this series without allowing a home run, while Ervin Santana gave the Angels starting staff their fourth quality start in as many attempts. Everyone wants Lackey back as soon as possible, myself included. And we all want Kelvim back period, but who knows how long that will take. Just the same, it looks like the healthy guys are out to prove that they can hold down the fort until the reinforcements arrive.

Three errors in the series, one on a poor Figgins throw today. Two in yesterday's game, an Aybar bobble and a Mathis heave into center field. But aside from that, and a couple of opening day mistakes in left field, the defense has looked pretty good. They turned seven double plays in the series, and that's one way to increase the number of quality starts.

No one is expecting the Twins to set the world on fire, so it's not as if this 3-1 series win is grounds for a party, but at the end of the day, the Angels are left with four more home games than road games, and they have a nice jump on a good road record.

To sum up, the pitching and defense have been great. The hitting has been adequate. Good power for their first series. Good starts for Figgins, Kotchman, and Kendrick, and Matthews, probably the four most important pieces to the offensive puzzle this year (I'm penciling good years from Vlad and Hunter). An all around nice way to start the season.

Angels 1; Twins 0 - Angels now over .500

Joe Saunders came into Spring not even assured of a starting job, though it's safe to say he had the inside track. A solid spring, and two injuries later, and he slid into the #3 role, where he delivered an ace-like performance. He needed only 80 pitches, 52 of the strikes, to complete eight innings, striking out four while only walking one. Had it not been for an opening two games that hadn't required a closer, he might have been allowed to go the distance. But Mike Scioscia needed to get Frankie Rodriguez some work, and after a brief hiccup to start the ninth, he got a little lucky when Carlos Gomez decided to try a two strike bunt that failed for the first out. He induced a double play grounder from pinch hitter Joe Mauer, the seventh double play hit into by the Twins in the first three games of the season.

Nick Blackburn was the hard luck loser, and no doubt he's being snatched up in fantasy leagues as we speak. He allowed five hits, struck out six, and only walked one. His only mistake came in the seventh inning, when he allowed the Angels to score without the ball leaving the infield. Howie Kendrick reached on an infield single to short, moved to second on Jeff Mathis' sac bunt, to third on Erick Aybar's ground out, and pounced at the opportunity to score on Blackburn's wild pitch.

Torii Hunter delivered his first two hits as an Angel, one of which (8th inning) should have delivered an insurance run, but a cautious Gary Matthews held up at third base, and one batter later, Casey Kotchman grounded into a double play ending the half inning.

So the Angels go for the series victory today, and it would be nice to leave the dome with three victories in hand. It's always a tough place for the Angels to play, and it seems like they've played a very high percentage of close games with the Twins over the last six or seven years. Joe Saunders, for his part, leave town with the highest game score of the young season, and he'll lead the league (tied) in ERA for a few days. Now we'll see how Ervin reacts to a day game (horror) on the road (horror of horrors). He's got a chance to make a statement.

Angels 9; Twins 1

Well, that ought to quiet the chicken littles for at least a day. I actually missed most of this one due to a hockey game, but I breezed through the recording from my DVR to watch the run scoring, which means I didn't take a lot of time to witness the greatness that was Jon Garland. His K/9 right now is 0.00, which means he sucks according to most people I read. Of course, if you can get through eight innings, allowing only six baserunners, two of whom were eliminated via the double play (grounded into by guys you failed to strike out), you'll probably have a good day. Pitchers can control or fail to control three things, so says the theory. They can or cannot strike guys out, they can or cannot not walk guys, and they can or cannot keep the ball in the ball park. Do two of those things well, and we'll let the third thing take care of itself.

On the other side of the dish, every Angel starter aside from Torii Hunter had a hit, and even Hunter reached base safely via the HBP. Mike Napoli and Casey Kotchman both found the seats, Howie Kendrick didn't walk, but did deliver three hits (don't get excited, though, because he doesn't walk so he's not that good). Vlad is becoming Vlad again, with three hits, four total bases, and three RBIs. GA delivered his first three hits of the season as well.

1-1, with 160 to go.

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.

Rough day

To start with, I played like crap in the CDGA Amateur qualifying. It's got me contemplating taking an indefinite hiatus from competitive golf. Fortunately, I'll be heading down to the Futures Tour event in Hammond this weekend to watch a friend play, so that will keep me occupied while I take a couple of weeks off from playing golf at all, which should allow my wrist some time to heal.

On top of that, the Angels played less than stellar baseball, and John Lackey blew a four run lead as the Angels lost their first game in the last six. They've now won four straight series, and nine of the last ten.

Lackey was sharp through three innings, but started to elevate the ball a bit, and if you do that during a day game in June, you're going to give up some home runs in that stadium. The Twins took advantage.

Then something happened in hockey, but I had already fallen asleep on the couch.

Twins 3; Angels 16

For the first few innings, this looked like your typical Angels-Twins tilt. Low scoring, good pitching, great defense, questionable baserunning, exciting plays on the bases and at the plate...

The Angels had extended a little bit in the fifth, putting together a two out rally, Orlando Cabrera's single bookended by doubles from Reggie Willits and Vlad Guerrero. After a Gary Matthews fly out, things had settled down.

Then, with one out in the sixth, Boof Bonser, who had been a strike throwing machine, threw three consecutive balls to Casey Kotchman. The fourth pitch was a strike, and it ended up about 8-10 rows deep in the right field seats. It was such a nice swing, I had to re-watch it a couple of times just to hear the crack of the bat. Then the floodgates opened. After a Howie Kendrick single, Mike Napoli knocked one into the second bullpen, and a two run lead was suddenly a five run lead. As if to rub it in, the Angels added two more runs with two out, Cabrera singling home Figgins (who should have been out stealing second), and a Matthews single following a Guerrero IBB for an 8-1 lead.

But this time eight wasn't enough. Willits, Cabrera, and Vlad reached again (a second straight IBB to Vlad), and Gary Matthews made them pay again, this time with a grand slam. And the hits just kept coming. Garret Anderson followed with a homer of his own. As much I love watching Vladdy hit it deep, there's just something about the swing that GA takes on home run balls that is really beautiful to watch. They weren't finished until they had doubled up that 8 runs for a total of 16 on 23 hits.

Almost lost in the shuffle was an excellent performance from Jered Weaver, who allowed six baserunners, one homer, and struck out four over seven innings. He's now 5-3 with a 3.88 ERA. I think that will come down a notch or so, and he'll finish the season closer to 3.50. I'd take that in a heartbeat. That would be a quality major league season.

After going 8-2 in their last ten, the Angels now sit 15 games over .500, trailing only the Red Sox and Mets in the race for baseball's best record. This has been a pretty nice 59 games, and a fantastic last 26, in which they've gone 20-6. They've been fun to watch.

Now let's hope they didn't use all their runs last night. And if they did, well, Kelvim is used to getting little help.