Monday, June 25, 2012

Angels Conquer the NL, Ready For Next Challenge (38/81)

Over the past 5 seasons the Angels have the best record in major league baseball in interleague play and put their stamp on their National League dominance with a 5-3 win over the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers Sunday afternoon.


Peter Bourjos hit his second home run of the year after a blown foul ball call by the first base umpire, Albert Pujols knocked in Mike Trout from second base, and Howie Kendrick and Mark Trumbo each broke 0-3 games with RBI singles in the 7th inning that gave the Angels the win. Garrett Richards tossed his worst game of the season and still picked up a quality start.

The Angels are having a blast right now, and why shouldn't they? With a 14-7 record in June and a 34-19 record since April 28 (rookie Mike Trout's 2012 season debut), the Angels have the best record in baseball in that time behind only one team: the Yankees (let's not forget the Angels won their last series versus the Yankees as well). Nobody can knock the Angels anymore because of their terrible start. As a matter of fact, if the season started on April 28, the Angels would be first place in the AL West, 4 games over the Texas Rangers (30-23 during the same period).

I will forever be confused and amazed with Mike Scioscia's coaching decisions. At the beginning of the season, I would yell at the TV or, while attending games, yell at the dugout for Scioscia's questionable decisions. I'm not sure if it was something Angel's GM Jerry Dipoto said, or the fact that Scioscia now has a lot more weapons at his disposal since the arrivals of Trout and reliever, Ernesto Frieri, but the Angels rotund skipper seems to make one right move after another.

Scioscia's bullpen-by-committee has been surprisingly successful and has turned around what was once the mockery of the American League to solid group of dependable relievers. Now knowing they're his team's biggest strength, Scioscia lets pitchers go the distance more often rather than pulling them early. He has gone back to what works with the Angel's small ball approach from guys like Erick Aybar, Maicer Izturis and Peter Bourjos, while at the same time allowing his power hitters like Pujols and Trumbo swing for the fences, and it works magically with Trout being able to do it all.

As we approach the middle of the year, we start to thing that this may very well be the Angels season to pull it off, or they may fizzle into oblivion in the second half. Only time will tell. However, no one can argue that this season has not been exciting.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Santana Throws Gem, Angels Stop and Stare (37/81)

Angels starter, Ervin Santana, struck out 10 and walked none but managed to take the loss thanks to some mental errors by the guys behind him and a lack of offensive production as the Angels lost to the Dodgers 3-1 on Saturday night.



Santana is in the process of turning his season around, throwing great in back-to-back games. The Angels just couldn't find ways to score yesterday, going 1-10 with runners in scoring position. The Angels also seemed to be making bad decisions and mental errors out on the field. It was a poor followup to the 8-5 win from the previous day.

If Santana keeps this up, he may very well solidify his spot back in the rotation before Jerome Williams, who's on the mend, comes back. Garrett Richards, who's pitching today for the Angels, is also fighting for a spot in the rotation and is throwing very well.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Freeway Series Comes to Anaheim (36/81)

The Los Angeles Dodgers made the trip down the I-5 to Anaheim last night and came in guns blazing, but couldn't hold the 5-0 lead after 2 innings to a 8-5 loss in a perfect example how these two teams seasons are going.



The Dodgers opened the season as the hottest team in baseball with the hottest hitter in Matt Kemp. After narrowly missing the NL MVP award last season, Kemp entered the season with 50-50 aspirations (50 home runs and 50 stolen bases), and after his hot start, it looked like he might actually make it. Unfortunately, due to a pulled hamstring those aspirations have faded away along with the Dodgers World Series hype.

In the past two months, the Angels have the best record in baseball and the Dodgers lead in the NL West is slipping. Luckily for the Dodgers, they got off to a hot start and have plenty of time to stop this skid before it becomes really alarming, but it goes to show how hard it is to maintain success over a 162 game season. Like my dad always says, the hottest teams in the beginning aren't usually the hottest teams in the end. If you get on a roll towards the end of the season and make the playoffs, you have a better chance to win the World Series than if you win 40 games in a row in April-June.

The Angels got off to one of their worst starts ever at the beginning of the season, but are doing great now. The key for the rest of the season will be to maintain that pace while not worrying about catching the red hot Texas Rangers. The problem with trying to catch the Rangers is that it becomes discouraging because of how good they are. The Angels have the best record in baseball since May 8, but are still 5-6 games out of first in the AL West. You can't explain that.

Rather than try to catch the Rangers, you're looking to make it to one of those 2 while card spots and win the 1-game playoff. The next round actually favors wild card winners most because, under the new wild card format, the first 2 playoff games of the best of 5 series are played at the wild card winner's field.

If the Angels catch the Rangers this season, I'll be surprised. I sure hope it happens, but I think its more realistic to aim for the Wild Card at this point.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Weaver Returns (35/81)

Right now I'm in Las Vegas enjoying a beautiful complimentary suite at Planet Hollywood and I didn't catch the game last night, so I'm going to make this quick.



Jered Weaver made his return from back injury last night and didn't look like he missed a beat. Limited only by a pitch count, Weaver gave up only 2 hits in his 6 innings as the Angels beat the San Francisco Giants 6-0 and reinserted himself with authority back into the ace spot in the starting rotation. The Angels certainly didn't miss Weaver, going 14-7 while he was gone, but I'm sure they're thrilled he's back and healthy.

Kendrys Morales has been in a big slump lately but jacked a solo home run last night, which was immediately followed by a TRUMBOMB! It's been a good couple games to be a part of the top half of the Angel's lineup.

Angels Big 3 Score Big (34/81)

The Angels scored their highest run total of the season on a day when C.J. Wilson didn't have his best stuff and beat the San Francisco Giants 12-5 to take game 2 of the series.


The Angels Big 3 (Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Mark Trumbo) did all the damage putting together 9 RBIs for the Halos. You can't expect this to happen all the time, but with the talent among these three, there's no reason the Angels shouldn't be scoring 6+ runs a game like the Texas Rangers.

Trout got on base all 5 at-bats and scored 4 runs. With a walk in the 8th he now qualifies for the major league batting title, second behind only Chicago White Sox's first baseman, Paul Konerko. Make sure to write him in when you're casting your All Star ballot.

I went to this game, and the Angels have a deal with Chronic Tacos that when the Angels score 10+ runs, all fans in attendance get a free taco. If you've never been to Chronic Tacos, you really outta check it out.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Williams Has Shortness of Breath, Health Scare (33/81)

Angels fell to the San Francisco Giants in the Giants first return to Angel Stadium last night, but that wasn't the real story. Angels starter, Jerome Williams was rush to the hospital during the game after he had passed out in the Angels clubhouse.



Williams was admitted to UCI Medical Center after experiencing a shortness of breath following an uncharacteristically bad start in which he gave up 4 runs in only 3 1/3 innings. The start was only his second poor outing at Angels Stadium.
 
I could tell after the first inning that something wasn't right with Williams. He was wild and not staying on top of his pitches.

Last night his wife tweeted from the hospital that he was doing better, but she asked fans to keep him in their prayers. I sincerely hope Williams is okay and comes back strong. Even though he's one of the best baseball stories in recent years, Williams has to focus on his health above all else, and if that means taking an extended leave from the team, then so be it.

With Williams out, youngster Garrett Richards momentarily avoids being sent back to Triple A although I'm sure he wishes it wasn't under these circumstances.

Let's hope Williams can battle back and keep him in our thoughts and prayers.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Angels Blank D-Backs for 2nd Straight Day (32/81)

Garrett Richards continued to pitch like a major league starter Sunday as the Angels shut out the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-0 for the second time in as many days.



Richards delivered a worthy follow up to Ervin Santana's 1-hitter, pitching 8 innings and giving up only 4 hits. Ernesto Frieri came in to shut the door in the 9th and picked up his 7th save as an Angel.

With Angels starting pitchers throwing as well as they have been lately, one has to wonder what's going to happen once Jered Weaver (back) comes back to the rotation next week.

The Angels have 6 guys who deserve to be on any rotation in the majors. Obviously Richards is the youngest, least experienced, and would be the first option to go. However, the guy has been lights out since his first start and has found the comfort level that he sorely lacked last season. Taking a starter out of the rotation who is throwing so well and sending him back to Triple A could backfire on the Angels future plans for Richards. The move may stump his development or it could have no effect at all.

The next and only other possibility to get sent down would be Santana, but he earned himself a couple more starters, at least, after his 1-hitter against the D-Backs last night. They're not sending Santana down unless he gives them no choice by falling flat on his face in his next few starts, and I don't see that happening.

Another unpopular, unconventional option would be to go to a 6-man rotation (something the Washington Nationals are considering to do to limit their ace, Stephen Strasburg's inning limit). I'm not a fan of the inning limit because it gives starters too long a rest between starts, which could be detrimental to a pitcher's rhythm.

The last thing would be to move Santana or Richards to the bullpen (something I strongly disagree with) and send a guy like Bobby Cassevah down.

If you were the Angels, what would you do to Garrett Richards when Jered Weaver returns?

Santana 1-Hits D-Backs (31/81)

Two words: ERVIN SANTANA. The Angels worst pitcher this year turned a surprise performance against the Arizona Diamondbacks last night giving up only 1 hit and 1 walk as the Angels won 2-0.



The year had been absolutely atrocious for the right-hander. Santana was leading the league in home runs given up and not giving his team a chance. However, the couple of times he had thrown well, he received zero run support from his team, let's not forget the Angels are still leading the league in being shut out, but last night was something else entirely.

In the second inning, my friend Andrew texts me:

"Ervin is looking sharp tonight."

Keep in mind, this is the same guy that texted me during the 3rd inning of Jered Weaver's no-hitter a few weeks ago:

"Weaver's got a no-no after 3... pray, my friend, pray like you've never prayed before.  I wanna see a no no!"

It's crazy to call a no-hitter that early in the game, but Andrew has been nearly spot on both times (and he doesn't even text me all that often). Sure enough, Santana was on fire last night and didn't give up a hit until 2 outs in the 7th inning. The outing reminded me of his no-hitter he threw last season, and I really hope this is the turning point of the year for him.

I wrote a few weeks ago about a couple of ideas to get Santana out of his funk. One of the ideas was to talk to a veteran pitcher to get some advice. Little did we know that advice would come from Arizona pitcher, Joe Saunders. Saunders, who came up through the Angels farm system with Santana, pitched in the same rotation for 4 1/2 years, and made the All Star team together, gave a pep talk to Santana on Friday telling him to keep his head up.

"I talked to him (Friday) and said, `Keep your head up, keep doing your thing," said Saunders, pitching on his 31st birthday. "I guess I had some real good advice. He really had it going."

Whatever Saunders told Santana worked. While I don't know how well Saunders would fit into the current Angels rotations, I'll be the first to admit that I miss the guy. He was always proud to wear the Angels uniform and always gave us his all. Maybe he'll be back again someday before his career is up.

For now, if Ervin continues what he started Saturday night in his next game, the Angels would be back to having one of the most feared rotations in all of baseball.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Angels Come Home, Leave Bats on Plane (30/81)

Yesterday may have marked the Angel's first home game since coming back from their awesome road trip, but the Angels have been back in sunny southern California since the beginning of the week.



In the last four games since getting off the plane, the Angels are 2-2 and have only managed 7 runs. Last night they got blanked by the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0 and are waiting for their bats to make it through customs. Even the sizzling hot, Mike Trout, has cooled off going 1 for 13 with a single and a walk in the past 3 games.

Surprisingly, the two Angels who have had the most offensive impact the last two days have been the most surprising. On Wednesday, the Angels beat the crosstown Dodgers 2-1 thanks to home runs by Alberto Callaspo and Erick Aybar. Last night, the Angels only managed 3 hits against D-Backs starter, Trevor Cahill, with two of those hits coming from Aybar and Callaspo.

I was listening to the game on the radio last night on my way to Downtown Disney to grab dinner when I heard that the Angels had elected to intentionally walk D-Back's catcher, Miguel Montero. This was a smart move as Montero has been tearing up the ball in recent games, but didn't pay off when D-Back's second baseman Aaron Hill ripped a high cutter over the fence for a 3-run home run off Angels starter, Dan Haren. Yes, that was the nail in the coffin for the Angel's futile offense that game, but you can't fault Mike Scioscia's team for making a smart move to walk Montero.


I've been faulting Scioscia a lot this season for some impractical moves, but in recent weeks, I've got to admit, he has been managing his team very well. Besides the one incident where he left Jerome Williams in too long against the Dodgers, the skipper has been putting together a very smart baseball team. Now if only these nerds can remember where they left their bats.


Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Home Streak is Over, Williams Loses First Game in Anaheim (29/81)

Since he got picked up by the Angels until last night, starter, Jerome Williams had never lost a game at Angels Stadium, a total of 8 starts. The Angels lost to the Seattle Mariners 8-6 in the final game of this series.


Jerome Williams has arguably been the most underrated 5th starter in Major League Baseball. Nobody really talks about him as he does his job well, but doesn't really do anything spectacular. Let's face it, ESPN is jumping up and down mentioning a guy who throws quality starts (6 innings pitched, 3 earned runs or less), but Williams has been consistently putting up good numbers. Of his 10 starts, 8 of them have been quality starts, and 6 of them resulting in Wins for Williams.

Going into this season, the anchor to the Angels rotation was considered a big question mark. Was last year's late season pickup, Williams, a fluke? Would Garrett Richards be able to bounce back after getting trounced in his major league debut? We didn't know. Based on his early season consistency though, I would consider Williams one of the top 4 Angels MVPs behind Mark Trumbo, Mike Trout, and tied with CJ Wilson.

Besides last night's uncharacteristic outing, Williams is outperforming expectations and giving the Angels stability in a season that desperately lacks it.

Trumbombs Galore (28/81)

Mark Trumbo had his first multi-home run game, Garrett Richards got his first career win, and the Angels spanked the Seattle Mariners 6-1 in the second game of the series.


I usually use an image from the game, but I found this website today that specializes in custom Angels t-shirts and couldn't pass up the opportunity to plug the site, Harness the Halo. I would prefer the shirts to be about $5 cheaper, but they're pretty good. If you're an Angel's fan, you should check them out.

Back to the real story: Mark Trumbo

Before Spring Training had even began, the "experts" were already writing off Trumbo's Rookie of the Year runner up as a fluke. They said that his OBP was too low to be valuable on a team that specialized in small ball, and he wouldn't be able to match his home run total again thanks to his strikeout rate.

As the season went on, Trumbo began getting more consistent at-bats and becoming more comfortable in the batter's box. His average and home runs began reflecting this confidence and now Trumbo is one of the hottest hitters in baseball (and he's a THIRD STRING FIRST BASEMAN).

"Experts" will be quick to point out that Trumbo's pace is unsustainable for a player of his skill level and that he'll come back down soon. They might be right, but I'm not so sure. One thing that hasn't been accounted for is Trumbo's determination. He has shown this season that he is one of the hardest workers on the Angels team when he tried to learn a new position once Albert Pujols came to town. He has also focused his approach at the plate and is striking out less and walking more. He knows what kind of reputation he earned last season and is doing everything in his power to change that. Pitcher's are noticing it too and are being more selective of their pitches to the former Villa Park High School standout.

However, they're not succeeding all the time as Trumbo turned Trumbombs into Trumbo Jacks Tuesday night.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

3 Things Santana Should Do To Get His Confidence Back (27/81)

Ervin Santana got shelled for what seems like every time this season, and the Angels couldn't overcome an early deficit as they lost to the Seattle Mariners 8-6.



Mike Trout had four hits, 2 RBIs and a run scored but it wasn't enough to erase the 7 runs Santana gave up in the first 5 innings.

Santana has not been right this year. Whether it's control or focus, he has not been able to miss bats very often. Santana has had the rap of a good year/bad year type of player. He would always follow up a good season with a bad to mediocre season. Last year was the first time he had back-to-back stellar years, and it made us forget about the whole Jekyll and Hyde persona. However, Mr. Hyde has reared his ugly head and, like Bruce Banner and the Hulk in The Avengers, Santana needs to find a way to get it under control.

A couple of solutions that might help the struggling righty:

1. Skip a start:

Give the guy a break, skip his next start and see if he comes back with a fresh look. We often hear about streaks and slumps that a batter can get into, but the same thing happens for pitchers too. If you're beating yourself up, you're going to continue to do so until something messes up your habits.

2. Send Santana to work with a veteran pitcher:

Guys like Chuck Finley or even Clyde Wright, who works right down the street, immediately come to mind. Just like Mickey Hatcher and the Angels offense, whatever Mike Butcher is saying to Santana is clearly not working. He needs to hear something different from someone else, a fresh perspective, to get him out of his own head and maybe fine tune his mechanics some more.

3. Send Santana down to Triple A to get his confidence back:

This one is the one least likely to happen as Santana has been a fixture in the Angels rotation for a few years now, and the Angels don't have any depth at the starter position with Jered Weaver out, but sometimes all you need to do is beat up on someone lesser than you to feel better about yourself.

Bullpen Fails as Rangers Run Over the Angels (26/81)

Dan Haren threw a decent game for 5 innings, but the strong right-hander threw too many pitches for his manager's taste, and the bullpen came in to give away the game to the Texas Rangers.


The Angels lost 7-3 to the Rangers in the final game of the series and fell back to 4 1/2 games out of first place in the AL West. However, we need to look on the bright side: when the Rangers came to town on Friday, they had the possibility of leaving Angel Stadium with a 9 1/2 game lead in the AL West. The fact that the Angels are only down by 4 1/2 games seems almost miraculous after their atrocious start to the season. The Angels are now 6th in the Wild Card race behind only the Cleveland Indians and the beast that is known as the AL East.

I found out some new information regarding the revised Wild Card today that strikes me as odd. We already knew that there would be two Wild Card teams this year, but what most of us didn't know was that the winning team from the one-game Wild Card playoff game would be rewarded with two straight home games against a defending division winner. The compensation is that the final three games are at the division winner's home field, but is still unfair because the division winner has the potential to be down 2-0 in a 5 game series without ever playing a home game. There's no way that the rules are going to change again this year, but I talked with Angel's beat writer Bill Plunkett who says not to expect this to be something we see in future seasons. EVERYONE, except maybe teams in the Wild Card race, are against this idea.


Trout and the Angels Swim Past the Rangers (25/81)

The Angels escaped the Texas Rangers for the second night in a row as they won 3-2 and crept closer in the rear view mirror of the AL West leaders.


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.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Trout Wrecks the Rangers (24/81)

Jerome Williams pitched yet another quality start and Mike Trout turned into a one-man-wrecking crew as the Angels came back to beat the rival Texas Rangers 4-2 in Anaheim.



Angels entered Friday night trailing the Rangers by 6 1/2 games in the AL West despite winning 8 out of their last 10 games. Knowing how important this series was, its not surprise that guys stepped up.

Down 2-0 in the 6th, Trout hit a long fly ball off the wall that scored catcher, John Hester, and then scored himself on Albert Pujols fly ball to right field. Just like that, the Angels, who had not been able to figure out Ranger's starter, Colby Lewis, had a fresh ball game.

Angels found their luck when they got the bases loaded in the 7th thanks to a hit batter and an error by Ranger's second baseman, Ian Kinsler. Trout stepped up to the plate yet again, and drove in two go-ahead runs that turned out to be the winning runs with a single to right field.

One of the biggest factors to the Angel's revival of their season has not just been their new found offense, but the restructuring of their bullpen. It seems that Mike Scioscia has finally found the perfect combination with Jordan Walden in the 7th, Scott Downs in the setup role in the 8th, and newcomer Ernesto Frieri (above) closing out the games. Not only does this work, but with Downs and Frieri throwing unhittable pitches, Scioscia has been able to interchange them in the 9th inning in respect to left-handed and right-handed batters. It has worked more beautifully for the Angels the past two weeks than I've ever seen for another team that utilizes the "closer-by-committee" concept. However, Scioscia is looking for a guy to "fill the role," as he states, and is most likely looking at Walden, Downs, Frieri (in that order) to finish games when the Angels have the lead.