Guess what Angel fans, today we get to experience something that was extremely rare last season. Not only did we get an Opening Day win on the road, we’re now in 1st place. Lets take a quick moment to savor that fact….
Ok now, moving on….I realized how brash and arrogant my preview was, throwing out predictions left and right with absolute disregard for my writing integrity. Common sense tells me not to make any more brash predictions so hold on to my integrity, too bad I am not a man of common sense. I need to redeem myself for those prediction, so I’m going to have to continue making irresponsible predictions until I get one right.
Check out the box score here before you read on.
The offense may not have exploded like i predicted them too, but they showed their capability to do so. Weaver wins this third Opening Day on the road, though lets not pass the fact that it was against a severely depleted Royals. Now that we’ve gotten past their ace Hochevar (try your best to hold in your mocking laughter) we can move on the weaker pitcher of the pack. We already verbally beat down the Royals in the preview, so we can move on. Now that we’re done having a little fun with their offense, lets move on the the awards.
M.V.P (Most Valuable Play) Award: This is a special M.V.P award to give out, seeing how today is a very special day. The Opening Day M.V.P has to go to a play that showed the standout qualities of the player, while providing excitement. This one’s going to Peter Bourjos and his outstanding play on the bunt single that to him taking advantage of a few errors to reach third. We all saw Bourjos put the pressure on the defense with his speed, forcing a throwing error at first. What’s even more exciting is the fact that the throw was not far enough to expect to see the baserunner attempt to take second. Yet thats what Bourjos went for, and using his unique speed he was able to beat out a close throw at second. Once again Bourjos was able to force an error on the throw to second, allowing him to stroll into third with ease. Not very many players have the skill-set to force 3 consecutive errors at once, that’s why Bourjos and his baserunning antics will receive todays M.V.P.
Hold My Hair Back, I Think I’m Gonna Puke Award: Easily every appearance the Angels relievers (expect for Walden) made from the 7th on. Takahashi gave up a homer to Francoeur? That’s almost as bad as Jepsen giving up a leadoff home run to Avila. Its almost a surprise that the only pitcher that didn’t make we queasy with part-anxiety part-rage was Rodney. His appearance simply ground my gears, why is this guy in the 9th anyway? I could stomach him pitching a middle inning, but not closing out. Michael Kohn almost wiggled his way into the Halo Hero award, if it wasn’t for the fact that he loaded the bases and displayed a lack of command and confidence. Also, not only did Trumbo fail to hit any Trum-bombs, he failed to get a base hit at all. Granted, he did get robbed of a single, he still struck out twice and allowed the opposing pitchers to exploit his weakness to the inside breaking pitch. I expected more from you Trumbo.
Anger Management Here I Come Award : This isn’t much of an award, it’s more me exercising my anger muscles towards certain individuals during the course of the game. Surprisingly, this one doesn’t go to anyone who was actually involved in the game, this goes out to those guys sitting behind home plate who kept wiggiling their fingers at the pitchers. Don’t think I didn’t take note of your tomfoolery, I saw every second of it. I don’t think this would have gotten to me if it wasn’t for the fact that it seemed to rattle Jepsen. Maybe their voodoo magic worked on Jepsen, maybe I’m making absurd and irrational conclusions. I’m a sports writer after all, I think there’s a monthly quota for absurd statements that comes with the job. I need to get a jump on that ASAP.
Halo Hero:
This one shouldn’t be much of a surprise, even if his control was a little “loosey goosey”. Despite his control problems he still went 6 1/3 IP while keeping the opposition to zero runs on two hits. Weaver did end up throwing over 100 pitches in that short amount of time, which isn’t too pleasing to see. He still kept the opposition scoreless, and finally got that run support that he desperately needed last season. This one’s to you Weaver, looking forward to seeing you receiving this award again sometime next week.
Honorable Mentions: Jeff Mathis and his surprising offensive production, Jordan Walden’s clean 1/3rd of an inning, Torii Hunter’s homerun and fine defensive play, and Erick Aybar’s productio nfrom the 6-hole.