How does a team score four runs on three hits and win the game? That’s easy! They play the Angels.
Somehow the Angels have only played 13 games this season yet they already seem to have figured out every possible creative way to lose a game. Tonight’s installment came in the form of C.J. Wilson gakking a throw to first base. That errant throw, which was preceded by two walks, cost the Angels two runs. That, of course, was all the A’s would need in order to pull away from this decrepit Angel offense.
I want to believe that in some baseball karma way this is just the Angels getting all the crappy luck out of their system now, but with each passing game of across the board ineptitude, it is getting harder and harder to believe that.
Game Notes
- 11 men stranded in this game. The Red LOBsters are already in mid-season form.
- I appreciate the confidence in Albert Pujols to predict to the media before the game that this would be the game where he finally hits his first home run, but I absolutely hate it. No, not because of the ego involved, but rather because there is no better way than to make sure you don’t hit a home run than to go up to the plate and actively trying to hit a homer. Granted, Albert missed that first homer by a matter of inches, but I think he was still swinging more aggressively than normal, especially in his first at-bat.
- Would you believe me if I told you on the night where Erick Aybar signed a big money extension and received his Gold Glove award that he would make two errors? Of course you would, because that is the kind of season it has been for the Angels. I hate to read into a player’s psyche, but Erick seemed like he was trying way too hard to make himself look good after inking that contract.
- For all the crap that we Angel fans have given Vernon Wells this season, it should probably be noted that he is the best hitter on the team right now. I mean that as both a compliment to Vernon, but also an insult to everyone else on the roster.
- Mark Trumbo got freed tonight and made good on all the fan hype behind him by nearly embedding a line drive in the left field wall. At a minimum, the Angels have to find a way to get him in the lineup against lefties because he has been absolutely murdering southpaws.
Halo A-hole
C.J. Wilson should have been the logical pick, but really it was Peter Bourjos who was the under-the-radar killer in this game. He killed rallies in the fourth, sixth and eighth innings because he is completely and totally lost at the plate right now. No at-bat showed that more than him letting a fastball right down the middle of the plate ring him up in the eighth. It appears that he has developed a bad case of Aybar-itis, as in the 2010 season Aybar had where he tried to force himself to be a patient hitter but instead just confused himself and lost all control of the stirke zone.