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.

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.

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.

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.