The Detroit Tigers, with their nightmare-inducing lineup and their flame-throwing starting pitchers, are THE scariest matchup in baseball right now. You never know when their team will explode for 10 runs a game (one of the biggest reasons their still in the Wild Card race), and it takes some skilled pitching to navigate those treacherous waters. Then Ervin Santana gave up 2 home runs.
Santana, who gave up solo home runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings, had Angels fans throwing up expletives early as Santana had blown an early 2-run lead. After that second home run though, Santana became a different person.
Santana kept the ball low, zeroed in on batters, then proceeded to tame the Tigers by striking out 10 batters in 6 2/3 innings. Despite giving up 34 long balls in the season, Santana has been throwing terrific in the last 8 games as he tries to carry his Angels team to the playoffs and earn himself a new contract in the process. In the last 8 games, Santana is 7-1 and has given up no more than 5 hits a game. Yeah, the guy has still given up home runs (11), but he's lowered his ERA from an ugly 6.00 to a less ugly, but still ugly 5.20 in the process. It shows improvement and the Angels are going to need improvement from every one of their starting pitchers down the stretch, especially with Jered Weaver going down for an undisclosed amount of time with shoulder tendinitis.
Every game from here on out is going to have a playoff atmosphere around it. Scioscia showed it last night by using 4 pitchers in 4 batters to face the matchups despite having a tie game. Angels have to do everything they can to win, and over the past two weeks, they've sure been living up to that.
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