Unfortunately, Mike Trout will be destined for fishy puns for the duration of his career (possibly even worse than another fish-named Angel), but the kid deserves his headlines.
The highlight of the night was the Angel's two-run seventh inning lead off by an Erick Aybar bunt single and proceeded to steal second base with one out. Trout came up and hit a ground ball to the shortstop, Elvis Andrus, but Aybar cut in front of Andrus to disrupt the play. Andrus was convinced that the ball hit Aybar, but the umpires didn't agree. Alberto Callaspo, who has really found a rhythm now that the Angels have stopped the Mark Trumbo Third Base Experiment, lined a single to right field to get the lead. Albert Pujols walked, and then the second controversial play happened in the inning:
Kendrys Morales hit a short fly ball to Nelson Cruz in right field with Trout on third. The ball was hit so short that you would have to be out of your mind or crazy to challenge Cruz's arm. Trout was a little of both. Trout slid into home plate at the same time he was tagged by catcher Yorvit Torrealba and the umpire called him safe. Torrealba was livid, threw his mask down and began stomping around in one of the most comical tantrums I've seen in awhile. He was immediately thrown out of the game, yet continued to rid home plate of any bugs that might be hanging around. Replays were inconclusive, and really that call could have been argued either way. You can't blame the umpire for making a call when you still can't tell the difference when the picture is blown up and slowed down by 100x.
Trout's run provided insurance and eventually served as the game winning run as Scott Downs and Ernesto Frieri ran into trouble in the 8th and 9th innings. Downs gave up his first run of the year, and Frieri gave up his first hit as the Rangers got the bases loaded with 2 outs in the 9th inning. The Angels were able to escape and are now 4 1/2 games out of first place.
Oh yeah, and C.J. Wilson threw great as always, only allowing 1 run in 6 innings, and I think Scioscia pulled him for Walden too early.
No comments:
Post a Comment