You know I try my absolute best to get too worked up over Downs All-Star snub, but holy beejesus after his awesome performance today how could he have been snubbed so hard?! This is almost as bad as a few years ago when Weaver got snubbed only to be added to the All-Star roster as an injury replacement, which leaves me a little hope that Downs might come in as an injury replacement. I don’t need to go mulling over his very All-Star worthy stats again after every single Angels fan and Angels affiliated media person has been spending the past couple days burning his immaculate stats into our brains.
After Jered Weaver gave up two consecutive base hits to lead off the 8th inning Downs came in and immediately shut the door on the Indians offense with a quick double play ball. After Downs sealed the door in the 8th to preserve the game it lead to more than just a win for Weaver, it dropped his ERA to 2.13, which is the lowest in the AL since Chris Sale did not pitch today.
What a great game for our pitching today, and ya know what?
The Angels still haven’t lost a game in July.
Still aching over Scott Downs unjustifiable snub even after I got it off my chest back there. When will this pain ever end?!?! WWHHEENNNNN????
Oh…when he undoubtedly gets selected as an injury replacement?
Sweeeettttt
Game Recap
- I love so much that Weaver got himself into an incredible jam in the 7th with the bases loaded and no outs, not because I’m a self hating sadist, but because I knew after all the babying the Angels coaches have been doing to Weaver since he came off the DL it finally gave him a shot to show that the Weave was in full order tonight. Would you be the least bit surprised that he got out of that jam completely unscathed? I wasn’t. I need to run through my dictionary to get a few good adjectives to describe Weaver’s performances, because using dominant and “lights out” over and over again is getting pretty dull and redundant. Also, how about that hair? Sweet baby Jesus how about that hair? I guess if Weaver is going to be taking the lions share of the ace duty he might as well have the lions mane to match.
- Sweet plate recognition! Albert Pujols recorded TWO walks today, and a hit too! After having to deal with this teams chronically horrible plate discipline for a few seasons it’s great to be able see Pujols getting back to being Pujols at the plate. I know he’s been at it for well over a month now, but ever since that horrible Titanic-level tragedy that was his month of April and first half of May I’m extremely elated to see Pujols showing off the skills that have made him so great throughout his career. After his first month I legitimately did not expect Pujols to be able to shoot his batting average to .300 or higher, but it looks like he’s well on his way to that. Might even crack 30 HR’s at that. I think he’ll easily crack 100 RBI’s even if the home run totals aren’t there, and that’s really mostly because of Mike Trout, though it’s still because Albert Pujols is Albert Pujols.
- I’m gonna go ahead and vent about Scott Downs just one more time, but I promise just one more time! For chrissakes the guy has a ridiculously miniscule ERA, I can’t even see it guys! What is it again, a third of a run?? Did you need to get a microscope to detect that ERA too? It’s not even that he busted Weaver out of a jam in the 8th inning, it’s that he pitched two innings to get the save as well. This is the era where relievers are typically pampered, especially closers, into pitching only one inning at a time. Before Scott Downs was an Angel I had wanted him to pitch for this team very bad, and now that’s he’s actually pitching for the Angels as well as he has been I’m more than happy with this signing. I’m in heaven right now, and I got there on the back on Scott Downs. I have no hesitation in saying that Scott Downs has probably been the best free agent reliever signing the Angels have ever made. This is rare…but thank you Tony Reagins. Thank you so freaking much. I’ll go ahead and crawl out of Scott Downs ass now.
Notable offensive performances: E.Aybar 1-4 1R 1RBI, T.Hunter 1-4 1K, A.Pujols 1-2 2BB’s, K.Morales 1-4, M.Trumbo 1-3 1BB, A.Callaspo 1-3 1RBI 1BB 1K, H.Kendrick 1-3 2R 1RBI, B.Wilson 1-4 1K
Notable pitching performances: J.Weaver 7 IP 5H 0ER 3BB 2K 2.13 ERA, S.Downs 2 IP 0H 0ER 0BB 0K
Halo Hero
Should this have gone to Weaver? Probably? Did I lie about crawling out of Downs ass back there?
You bet I did.