An Angel series sweep at the hands of the lowly Orioles in which the fat lady has sung for the Angel season.
Game 1 – Orioles 6, Angels 3
Game 2 – Orioles 9, Angels 7
Game 3 – Orioles 5, Angels 4
Los Angeles Angels of AWESOMENESS
- Trevor Bell wasn’t great, but he did more than enough to keep his rotation spot for a little while longer, not that they have much choice. He’s no ace or anything, but he pounded the strike zone (sometimes a little too much), which is a lot more than we can say for a certain injured Angel starter slated to rejoin the team this weekend.
- Neither Angel comeback ended up paying off, but at least the Halos showed some spirit and fight in an otherwise embarrassing series. Hopefully they can keep their chins up going forward so that the rest of the season doesn’t end up so disappointing.
- Kudos to Mike Scioscia for finally getting over his undying loyalty to his underperforming veterans and fully committing to having Peter Bourjos in center field. The kid showed that he had some game and it will do him a lot of good if he is allowed to develop, unencumbered by the pressure of fighting for at-bats.
Los Angeles Angels of FAIL
- Do you hear the music? That’s the sound of the fat lady singing to declare the Angel season officially dead. Before this series started, I said that the Angels needed a sweep in these three games, but they obviously didn’t understand what I meant. The Orioles are just awful but the Angels sunk down to their level and beyond it. The question now is if they can pull themselves back up to at least try and salvage some pride before the end of the year.
- Wow, did Ervin Santana ever chose a bad time to have a meltdown. For the first time all season, Ervin didn’t give the Angels five innings and turned in what was easily his worst start of the year. The Halos badly needed to bounce back from their disappointing start to the series, but instead Santana just dug them a deeper hole and they could quite get out.
- Double wow. What was Torii Hunter thinking trying to steal third base in the ninth inning down by two? Had he been successful, it would have accomplished absolutely NOTHING. It wasn’t Torii’s first misadventure on the bases this year and it probably won’t be his last. To put it simply, he is trying to hard to “make things happen” and has begun ignoring logic and rationality to do so.
- Not that I am a big fan of Brian Fuentes, but I don’t get the logic of not having him throw a single pitch all series, especially when he could have been used in the ninth inning of the final game before resorting to using Francisco Rodriguez again. Like him or not, Fuentes is the team’s best reliever and failing to use him at all in favor of a guy who already blew one game this series is just moronic. Bad, Scioscia, bad.
Halo Has Been of the Series
Just when I started to trust Francisco Rodriguez, he goes and flushes a perfectly good start by Trevor Bell down the toilet and then follows it up by spoiling an Angel comeback to salvage the series. Francisco really seems like he could be a quality reliever, but he needs to get over his intermittent fear of throwing strikes. Until that day comes, Scioscia needs to find someone else to handle the high leverage middle relief innings.