What the Hell Happened to Ervin Santana's Face? (57/81)

Throughout his season long struggle, Ervin Santana has faced his share of problems. The dude went from being the number 2 starter on the team only 2 seasons ago to barely hanging onto his rotation spot by the fringe of his fingers. Something was brought to my attention last night that shattered my world forever. My pops asked me, "Is it me or does Santana's face look bigger than normal?"

I never really thought about it until my dad mentioned it, but oh my gawd! What the heck happened to Ervin? He really let himself go lately.

Santana looks like he got stung in the face with a buttload of bees. It's something I never noticed before, but I'll give a few theories on what I think happened to the Dominican right hander.

1. His recent struggles have put him on the breakup diet

Ladies, you know what the breakup diet is. When you get depressed that your man broke up with you, you get out that tub of ice cream and hold onto it with a vice grip tighter than the one you get during child birth. I've felt that grip; it's deadly. Men can also fall into the breakup diet when the reach a state of depression and start to not care about their appearance. Santana might've got so fed up with his struggles that he started to feed up his belly.

2. Maybe Dominicans gain weight easier than everyone else

When you look at guys like Bartolo Colon, David Ortiz and Juan Uribe, this idea doesn't seem so farfetched. Colon always had trouble keeping his weight down when he was with the Angels and Ortiz is just a big guy in general. Santana went from skinny jeans to puffy cheeks in a matter or weeks/months, but being Dominican won't explain that.

3. Maybe he had an allergic reaction

To bees or a certain medication that caused his face to swell up. This one seems most plausible because Santana doesn't look like he's rocking a big gut. His face just seems swollen and round.

4. Juicing?

With the way the league sets up their random drug tests and how damaging being caught can be to your career (right, Ryan Braun? Oh wait...) you'd have to be a fool to rock the steroids in this era. Well, we found our fool. Fellow Dominican Melky Cabrera was recently popped for having an illegal amount of testosterone in his system. The pressures of being a major league player and making millions of dollars can be too much for some people, and Santana could fall into that category.

Santana is in his contract year and Angels are unlikely to resign him after the inconsistency he's shown this season. Steroids are proven to cause your head to swell and your balls to shrink. I sure hope this isn't the case for Santana, but if he's got raisin testicles, he's gonna be out of a job for more than just the offseason. Let's just hope I'm wrong about all this stuff, and he just happened to get back in line one too many times at the seafood buffet.

Screw Tacos, Angels Want to Take Back The West (56/81)

The Angels came one run short of giving all fans in attendance a free taco from Chronic Tacos with their 9-6 win over the Cleveland Indians last night. When the Angels score 10 runs or more and win, all fans in attendance receive a free taco if they present their game ticket at Chronic Tacos within a week of the game. As much as I'm sure the Angels want to score 10 or more runs every game, I think they're just fine with knocking off a game from Texas and Oakland last night.

The Angels celebrated the 10th Anniversary of their World Series win in 2002 last night. All fans in attendance received a replica World Series ring figurine (above) and former closer, Troy Percival, threw out the first pitch. Percy looks to be pushing the waistband a little more than in his pitching days, but it was a great moment to be at the game last night to witness him back on the field. It feels like yesterday when the Angels beat the Giants in an electrifying 7-game series to win their first title.

Back to the game: The Angels jumped on Indian's starter Ubaldo Jimenez early and never looked back. After the first five batters the Angels sent to the plate, they were up 3-0 with no outs. By the time the first inning ended, the Angels were up 4-0 and had batted around the order.

Good thing those bats didn't cool off though because despite home runs from Albert Pujols and the hot-hitting Erick Aybar, the Angels bullpen started feeling shaky again. Once Indians, and former Angels, first baseman Casey Kotchman hit a 2-run bomb to right field off of LaTroy Hawkins, Mike Scioscia didn't mess around and went immediately to Kevin Jepsen despite there already being two outs.

Ernesto Frieri was able to close the door on this one to earn his 14th save of the season and give Zack Greinke his first win as an Angel. With as shaky as the bullpen has been this month, I can't wait until Scott Downs and Jordan Walden show up, and it better be soon.

Bullpen Sucks and Blows Another One (55/81)

Remember in the middle of the season when the Angels bullpen inexplicably turned their season around and began pitching lights out? With the acquisition of Ernesto Frieri and an innovative closer system implemented by Mike Scioscia, the Angels bullpen began holding leads for the first time in two years. All of that has gone away and the Angels bullpen is once again back to meeting expectations.

Angels were struggling to get back into the game, down 3-0 in the 8th inning when Albert Pujols came through with a clutch 2-run home run. With the score 3-2 going into the 9th, the Angels handed the ball over to relief pitcher Hisanori Takahashi. Takahashi then proceeded to give up 3 hits to 3 batters before being relieved by Jason Isringhausen. Not even the veteran Isringhausen could close the door on that mess as the inning ended with the Cleveland Indians up 6-2.

What happened? Recently asked about the team's struggles, Torii Hunter responded, "I can't talk about that," Hunter said. "I will never talk about my pitchers."

With a staff ERA of 6.67 in August, the worst in all of baseball, Angels have watched their name tumble down the standing further behind Texas and now fifth in the Wild Card standings.

Angels pitching coach, Mike Butcher, was thrown out of the game the other night for getting in the face of an umpire when he took issue over the umpire's strike zone against Jered Weaver. As a result, Butcher has been suspended one game by the league. It will be interesting to see if the Angels shutout the Indians tonight, and everyone makes a big stink about Butcher being the problem.

I'll stand by what I've been saying all year, the Angels need a breath of fresh air in their pitching approach. Despite their unquestionable talent, the pitching has struggled and someone needs to man up and accept the blame or turn things around.