“You have got to be kidding me.” That was the theme of the night and the phrase that kept blurting out of my mouth throughout the tonight’s heart-wrenching Angel loss. The old adage in baseball is that you just have to hit the ball where they ain’t. Well, the Angels tried to do that tonight, but apparently the Tigers are everywhere.
No matter what the Angels did, it seemed that Detroit was ready to flash the leather and shut them down. From the very start of the game, the Tigers made it known that the ball just wasn’t going to bounce the Angels’ way. On just the second batter of the night, Curtis Granderson made a tremendous running catch to save a run. “You have got to be kidding me!” Two batters later, Brandon Inge made a run-saving diving stop to start a double play and prevent a potential big inning. “You have got to be kidding me!!”
And just when the Angels seemed like they were going to get back into the game, they finally got a lucky break when Zach Miner threw a wild pitch with the bases loaded and two outs, only it turned unlucky for the Halos when Alex Avila turned into a jungle cat and pounced on the ball and threw a perfect strike to Miner at home plate to just barely nip Abreu for the final out of the inning. “You have got to be kidding me!!!”
Unbowed by this tough break, the Angels rallied again in the eighth and looked like they had finally broken through when Kendry Morales smacked a drive to the right field wall that was certain to drive in a run, but K-Mo didn’t account on Clete Thomas making a leaping catch on the ball instead. “You have got to be kidding me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Sometimes it just isn’t your night, and tonight definitely wasn’t the night for Vlad and the boys.
Yeah, Torii, that loss hurt me too.
Good News:
- They didn’t have much to show for it, but the Angel offense had a good night after struggling recently. Working seven walks is a great way for them to get their focus back at the plate and most nights will result in a lot more than three runs.
- For as bad a start as Howie Kendrick got off to, he is still going to end up with some nice numbers to end the year. After his three-run home run tonight, he now set new career highs in homers and RBIs by a good amount.
Bad News:
- What the hell was Scioscia thinking letting John Lackey start the seventh inning? Did it not occur to him that Lackey was already at 113 pitches and had been laboring badly the previous two innings? Did he not notice that Granderson had already homered off of Lackey in his last at-bat? I know the bullpen sucks, but that was really one of the few truly stupid decisions I have ever seen Scioscia make and it cost the Angels the game.
- OK, seriously, I was kidding about starting an umpire injuring streak. I thought I had some majorly bad karma heading my way when Chad Fairchild took that foul tip off the arm.
- Everyone else knows it is OK to walk Miguel Cabrera, right? He had two more RBI and three hits, including a homer and double tonight and not once did the Angels even try to pitch around him even though Aubrey Huff is practically begging people to intentionally walk Cabrera so they can strike him out.
Halo Anti-Hero:
- Vladimir Guerrero
Holy bajesus did Guerrero have a bad night. Not only did he go hitless, but he left a small country on base in the game including runners on the corners in ninth and two more in the fifth inning.