The Angels bullpen has been its Achilles Heel all year. One wonders how much better the Angels' record would be if the starting staff had been healthy all year, and if that staff were able to turn leads over to a bullpen that could consistently get batters out. It's amazing that despite it all, the Angels still sit six games ahead of the Texas Rangers, poised to win their third straight division title.
But as the Angels gear up for the post season, there may be a solution to the ninth inning issues the team has recently faced. It's becoming increasingly clear that Brian Fuentes is not the answer. Since the all-star break, his ERA is a pathetic 6.38, and he's allowing opponents to post an OPS of .952. It's far too late to add a pitcher through an acquisition, and there are no Frankie Rodriguezes in the minor leagues, so no one is going to be snuck onto the post-season roster. Kevin Jepsen and Jason Bulger are intriguing options. Jepsen has been fantastic since the break, posting an ERA of 2.08 in 35 innings, while allowing a measly .513 opponents OPS. Bulger has been just as good, allowing an ERA of 1.99 while opponents are posting an OPS of just .634 against.
So the Angels can go into the post-season with either a closer who brings lights out stuff (Jepsen or Bulger), or a closer who brings playoff experience (Fuentes). But they might be able to do both. My suggestion for the role of post-season closer is Ervin Santana. I'm not the only person who thinks so. SenorChuckles over at Halos Heaven has offered the same advice.
In Santana's last 45 innings, he's posting an ERA of 2.96 and an OPS against of .717. Those numbers are solid, but keep in mind, he's put those up while pacing himself. Give him the opportunity to work in short stints, and you probably add a mph or two to his fastball. Let him cut loose a bit. He also give you the additional ability to work more than an inning if need be.
There's really no reason not to make this move. Santana has closer stuff. He has playoff experience. He's probably the odd man out in the rotation for playoffs. Lackey, Kazmir, and Weaver appear to be locks, and with two lefties in the pen (Oliver and Fuentes), Saunders is a good fit for the rotation. They don't need another lefty in the bullpen, and Saunders is pitching well enough since returning from injury to be a part of the post-season rotation. Don't let last night's game fool you. He had a rough inning that included only two hard hit balls, both of which should have been outs.
Will Scioscia do it? His usage patterns for Fuentes over the next couple weeks will tell the story. He's appearing less and less confident in his veteran closer. Santana in that role would leave the Angels' bullpen with a long reliever (Palmer), two lefties, and two power arm righthanders. But this is a move that doesn't harm the rotation and improves the bullpen. Santana's cool demeanor will serve him well in that role.
Showing posts with label Ervin Santana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ervin Santana. Show all posts
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Voodoo Does that Voodoo That He Does So Well; Angels win 6-0
Ervin Santana has been an enigma all season. The velocity, the movement, the ability seems to have been there all year. Yet he entered tonight's game with Tampa Bay with an ERA over seven, struggling to find any type of consistency. He looked like Santana v2.008 tonight, simply dominating Tampa. Santana held the Rays to three hits, just five baserunners, struck out six, and completed nine innings in fewer than 100 pitches to earn his fifth win of the season. Coupled with the Rangers' loss in Cleveland, the Angels all but wiped out the weekend series, and pushed their AL West lead to five games.
Almost more surprising than Santana's performance was the Angels offense. Not the six runs so much as how they got them home. All six of the Angels' runs came with two outs, and five of them were driven in by Reggie Willits (2) and Jeff Mathis (3), both of whom are hitting under .220.
David Price took a no-hitter into the fifth inning before Juan Rivera led off with a single. With two out, Mathis delivered a base hit, but both runners took an extra base on an error by left fielder Carl Crawford. With two outs and two strikes, Willits delivered a two run single, advancing to second on the play at the plate. He was subsequently singled home by Chone Figgins.
An inning later, the Angels loaded the bases with singles from Vladimir Guerrero, Kendry Morales, and Howie Kendrick. Jeff Mathis then delivered a rocket of a double over the head of Crawford. All three runners scored, breaking the game open to 6-0, and the Angels never looked back.
Thoughts on the game:
- The Angels were quiet at the trade deadline, but the resurgence of Ervin Santana and Vlad Guerrero could be bigger than any acquisitions the Angels could have made. When Santana is on his game, he's one of the best pitchers in the AL. Vlad, meanwhile, has hits in ten straight games, including two more tonight.
- Vlad's two hits put him over .300 for the season. That means that the top six hitters in the Angels lineup, after tonight's game, are all hitting over .300. Howie Kendrick sits at .270, and Napoli, who is the top starting catcher on the team, is hitting near .300. This is really an incredibly fun offense to watch.
- Santana's effort meant the Angels didn't need to use the bullpen, but if they had, one guy we would not have seen is Justin Speier. The Angels gave him his unconditional release today with a season and a half remaining on his contract. It's sad, really. Speier's first season was excellent, but after last year's illness, he was never really the same.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Inauspicious Debuts - with a bunch of updates
As I write this, the Angles trail Oakland 4-0 in the second inning. After a nice start, Nick Adenhart, making his major league debut, gave up a hit, four walks, and another hit, which led to those four runs.
It's times like these I like to recall Ervin Santana's major league debut. On May 17, 2005, Ervin Santana faced the Cleveland Indians in Cleveland. He gave up a triple to Grady Sizemore, a double to Coco Crisp, a Single to Travis Hafner, and home run to Ben Broussard. He gave up the cycle to the first four batters he faced in his career. Since that game, he's 40-29, and that inlcudes an awful year last year, plus he's only 25.
The moral of the story? Stuff happens. Adenhart will be fine.
Oh, and now it's 4-1, thanks to Jack "Glove-butcher" Cust.
Update: Now it's 5-4 Angels, thanks to Cust and a lack of mental toughness on the part of the Duke. Back to you, Nick.
Further Updated: The Angels bullpen proves that if you're the Angels brass, it's pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't when it comes to the Angels seventh starter position.
Updated again: This is what I wrote on BTF in response to all of the doom and gloom:
Ervin Santana - Major League Debut: 4 IP, 6 ER, 8 H, 3 BB, 2 HR, and he gave up the cycle to the first four batters he faced.
Ervin Santana - Next Major League Start: 9 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 1BB, 7 K. That was against the eventual World Champion White Sox.
Something tells me that when a kid who is a top prospect is called up and stuggles in his debut, it's not the end of the world. It's May fer chrissakes. Can we please pull back from the ledge?
OR
It's times like these I like to recall Ervin Santana's major league debut. On May 17, 2005, Ervin Santana faced the Cleveland Indians in Cleveland. He gave up a triple to Grady Sizemore, a double to Coco Crisp, a Single to Travis Hafner, and home run to Ben Broussard. He gave up the cycle to the first four batters he faced in his career. Since that game, he's 40-29, and that inlcudes an awful year last year, plus he's only 25.
The moral of the story? Stuff happens. Adenhart will be fine.
Oh, and now it's 4-1, thanks to Jack "Glove-butcher" Cust.
Update: Now it's 5-4 Angels, thanks to Cust and a lack of mental toughness on the part of the Duke. Back to you, Nick.
Further Updated: The Angels bullpen proves that if you're the Angels brass, it's pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't when it comes to the Angels seventh starter position.
Updated again: This is what I wrote on BTF in response to all of the doom and gloom:
Ervin Santana - Major League Debut: 4 IP, 6 ER, 8 H, 3 BB, 2 HR, and he gave up the cycle to the first four batters he faced.
Ervin Santana - Next Major League Start: 9 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 1BB, 7 K. That was against the eventual World Champion White Sox.
Something tells me that when a kid who is a top prospect is called up and stuggles in his debut, it's not the end of the world. It's May fer chrissakes. Can we please pull back from the ledge?
OR
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Angels 6; Indians 7
My second trip to Milwaukee and my first trip to Miller Park. You've really got to hand it to Milwaukee. On basically one day's notice, for two teams that aren't even in their league, they drew more people than the A's drew for a home game against the 2005 World Champions. But I don't need to remind any of you that A's "fans" suck.
I'm very glad that I had purchased and printed my tickets out earlier in the day. As it was, it took us a while to get into the parking lot, and we missed most of the first inning. Had we stood in the walk-up line, we wouldn't have gotten into the game until the third or fourth inning.
As we were walking to our seats, we were interviewed by Erin Toner of Milwaukee's NPR station for a national story. Unfortunately, it sounds like we ended up on the cutting room floor. They played the story on Morning Edition and they only used interviews with Indians fans. My friend was right. We should have told them we had flown in that day from LA. A lot more compelling than an interview with someone who drove up from Chicago.
We had seats (as you can see from the pictures in the post below) down the third base line. Started in row 25, but met up with Josh from Pearly Gates who was in the same section in row 9, and we sat with him for pretty much the entire game. All tickets were $10, and parking was only $8. The stadium was nice and warm. I hear the concessions lines were pretty long, but I never left my seat, so I can't give a first hand account. Still, on short notice, the Brewers did a pretty good job of throwing this together. I was pretty sure I was going to try to get to tonight's game as well, but with the snow (they're supposed to get 4 inches or so up there), it's not worth the four hour drive that it will become.
Santana clearly didn't have it. He couldn't throw strikes, and the ones he did throw got tagged for two long home runs. The Angels had Darren Oliver up in the fourth before Santana got out of the inning, and followed that up with two runs to get back into the game. At that point I mentioned to someone that they probably ought to take Santana out, because he was likely to give those runs back, and sure enough, he conspired with Pipo to do just that, with Pipo giving up a sac fly and a two out, two run double before getting out of the inning.
Still, the Angels worked their way back into the game, with two runs in the eighth and a run in the ninth. They had the tying run on first base, and Howie Kendrick coming to the plate. Speculating from the stands, Erick Aybar never even entered my mind. I thought for sure they would use Willits or Murphy to pinch run in that spot, but I'm assuming the idea was to move Kendrick to first and Aybar to second if they had tied the game. And seriously, standing there, Jose and I went back and forth over how bad of a baserunner Aybar was. He's fast, but he's not a good baserunner, and he's not a good base stealer by any means.
So what happens with a fast guy on first and a hot hitter at the plate? Aybar goes and gets thrown out to end the game for the second time in a week. It was quite possibly one of the dumbest ways to end a game I've ever seen. At least when Frankie dropped the ball a couple of years ago, it was lazy, but it was a mistake. This, on the other hand, was simply an awful, awful decision, and the blame is shared equally between Aybar and Scioscia. Scioscia should have been smart enough to give Aybar the red light, and Aybar should have been smart enough to just say no to the green light.
Other than Howie's 4-4 night and GA's 3-5, the other bright spot was Chris Bootcheck. 1.2 IP, no hits, a walk, and a strikeout. I'll take that from the fifth or sixth reliever every time. Props to Darren Oliver who got Travis Hafner looking in a tough spot as well.
It really was a fun evening, despite the douchebags sitting in front of us for the last few innings. I enjoyed Miller Park, and it was kind of neat to finally attend a game indoors. First time I've ever been in a dome, or at least a retractable roof stadium with it's roof closed. Sight lines could be a tiny bit better, but otherwise it was a really nice park, and it was super easy to get out of the parking lot after the game ended. I wouldn't mind getting up there for another game sometime this season.
In other news, Brendan Donnelly is still kind of a bad ass, and Jose Guillen is still a cocksucker. Donnelly struck out the piece of shit on three pitches, then grabbed his crotch, which set Guillen off. Guillen got run, and Donnelly plunked the next batter. I love baseball.
I'm very glad that I had purchased and printed my tickets out earlier in the day. As it was, it took us a while to get into the parking lot, and we missed most of the first inning. Had we stood in the walk-up line, we wouldn't have gotten into the game until the third or fourth inning.
As we were walking to our seats, we were interviewed by Erin Toner of Milwaukee's NPR station for a national story. Unfortunately, it sounds like we ended up on the cutting room floor. They played the story on Morning Edition and they only used interviews with Indians fans. My friend was right. We should have told them we had flown in that day from LA. A lot more compelling than an interview with someone who drove up from Chicago.
We had seats (as you can see from the pictures in the post below) down the third base line. Started in row 25, but met up with Josh from Pearly Gates who was in the same section in row 9, and we sat with him for pretty much the entire game. All tickets were $10, and parking was only $8. The stadium was nice and warm. I hear the concessions lines were pretty long, but I never left my seat, so I can't give a first hand account. Still, on short notice, the Brewers did a pretty good job of throwing this together. I was pretty sure I was going to try to get to tonight's game as well, but with the snow (they're supposed to get 4 inches or so up there), it's not worth the four hour drive that it will become.
Santana clearly didn't have it. He couldn't throw strikes, and the ones he did throw got tagged for two long home runs. The Angels had Darren Oliver up in the fourth before Santana got out of the inning, and followed that up with two runs to get back into the game. At that point I mentioned to someone that they probably ought to take Santana out, because he was likely to give those runs back, and sure enough, he conspired with Pipo to do just that, with Pipo giving up a sac fly and a two out, two run double before getting out of the inning.
Still, the Angels worked their way back into the game, with two runs in the eighth and a run in the ninth. They had the tying run on first base, and Howie Kendrick coming to the plate. Speculating from the stands, Erick Aybar never even entered my mind. I thought for sure they would use Willits or Murphy to pinch run in that spot, but I'm assuming the idea was to move Kendrick to first and Aybar to second if they had tied the game. And seriously, standing there, Jose and I went back and forth over how bad of a baserunner Aybar was. He's fast, but he's not a good baserunner, and he's not a good base stealer by any means.
So what happens with a fast guy on first and a hot hitter at the plate? Aybar goes and gets thrown out to end the game for the second time in a week. It was quite possibly one of the dumbest ways to end a game I've ever seen. At least when Frankie dropped the ball a couple of years ago, it was lazy, but it was a mistake. This, on the other hand, was simply an awful, awful decision, and the blame is shared equally between Aybar and Scioscia. Scioscia should have been smart enough to give Aybar the red light, and Aybar should have been smart enough to just say no to the green light.
Other than Howie's 4-4 night and GA's 3-5, the other bright spot was Chris Bootcheck. 1.2 IP, no hits, a walk, and a strikeout. I'll take that from the fifth or sixth reliever every time. Props to Darren Oliver who got Travis Hafner looking in a tough spot as well.
It really was a fun evening, despite the douchebags sitting in front of us for the last few innings. I enjoyed Miller Park, and it was kind of neat to finally attend a game indoors. First time I've ever been in a dome, or at least a retractable roof stadium with it's roof closed. Sight lines could be a tiny bit better, but otherwise it was a really nice park, and it was super easy to get out of the parking lot after the game ended. I wouldn't mind getting up there for another game sometime this season.
In other news, Brendan Donnelly is still kind of a bad ass, and Jose Guillen is still a cocksucker. Donnelly struck out the piece of shit on three pitches, then grabbed his crotch, which set Guillen off. Guillen got run, and Donnelly plunked the next batter. I love baseball.
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