Albert Pujols has 4 extra base hits in the first two games of the series
Ace Jered Weaver further bolstered his Cy Young resume while Albert Pujols and Mike Trout provided the offense to give the Angels a 6-2 win, improving their 2012 record against Texas to 7-4 and slashing their AL West deficit to 3 games. At the time of writing this, the Angels were tied with the A’s for the wild card lead and 2 games ahead of the next wild card contender, the Baltimore Orioles (The Orioles can’t be for real, can they? Their -51 run differential says they’re pretenders).
Holland cruised through the first innings 3 innings, but Albert Pujols got to him in the 4th inning, hitting a high 0-2 fastball for a home run that just cleared the left field wall. In the 6th, Trout connected for a 2-run homer, his 18th of the year and 10th in July, and Pujols hit a solo shot to extend the score to 4-0.
Maicer Izturis began an Angels rally in the 7th inning with a 1-out single up the middle. Two batters later, Holland walked Trout and prompted Ron Washington to yank him from what began as a promising start. Tanner Scheppers* relieved Holland and allowed a 2-out, 2-run double to deep center field to Torii Hunter, bumping the score to 6-0 Angels and giving Jered Weaver an important cushion.
* I’m probably way off base, but Tanner seems like a very Texas name.
Weaver looked in top form for most of the game, a start made doubly important by Dan Haren’s back stiffness flaring up again and being scratched from his Wednesday start — Garrett Richards will start/be fed to the wolves in Haren’s place. Weaver retired the first 14 Rangers he faced, mixing great stuff with his consistently impeccable command.
The Rangers offense is too good to shut down forever, though, and Weaver ran into some trouble in the 7th inning. Josh Hamilton whacked a 1-out single to right field and Michael Young followed with a sharp single past Izturis. David Murphy then drove both runners in with a double to deep center field. Mike Scioscia then took Weaver out after only throwing 97 pitches, probably due to the intense Texas heat that hovered around 100 degrees the entire game. Kevin Jepsen entered the game and continued his return from the dead to throw water on a possible Texas rally.
Jason Isringhausen and Ernesto Frieri combined to retire the next 6 Rangers in order to preserve the 6-2 victory and push Weaver’s record to 14-1.** All told, Weaver’s final line was terrific considering the opponent: 6 1/3 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K. The Angels will need more performances like that if they want to catch the Rangers.
** I care not at all about pitcher wins, but 14-1 is nice to look at at.
Richards faces Yu Darvish tomorrow night to try to clinch a series victory for the Angels. Darvish has pitched very well against the Angels and throwing a rookie in the Texas fire (almost literally) could turn ugly. But hey, Ervin Santana survived Monday, so stranger things have happened.
Not related to the game but also of note, the Angels placed Scott Downs on the 15-day DL today because of a shoulder strain. I won’t pretend to know anything about kinesiology, but that sounds like a rough injury for a pitcher. Downs is maybe the Angels most valuable relief pitcher, so Jepsen will have to continue to pitch well and hopefully Jordan Walden will come off the DL soon and pitch effectively.
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Hopefully Downs comes back soon and Haren remains OK. Rotation looking like the best of the bunch with the addition of Greinke. Bullpen has settled down nicely, and the offense has been top 3 since Trout’s call up. With all the “question marks” they have been able to maintain best record pace. Things are lining up still, its good to be a Halos fan.
To your point and FWIW, I read somewhere today that the Angels have the best record in baseball since Trout was called up. I haven’t fact checked for myself, but they’re certainly up there.
Haren’s back is concerning. Have a feeling this will linger the rest of the season.
Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s first take is definitely drinking the Angels kool-aid. Saw where he said there’s no reason why the Angels shouldn’t win the World Series in 2012.
The hype surrounding this team is just incredible. Arte Moreno has made this team the New York Yankees/Boston Red Sox of the West Coast. Unfortunately for you Angels fans, you’re about to increasingly find out what it feels to have 90% of the rest of basebgall rooting mercilessly against you and waxing ecstatic over every stumble, gaffe, missed opportunity, letdown, or shortfall relative to expectations.
Your owner doesn’t like conducting business humbly. Fair enough. Anything short of an AL Pennent this year will be an unmitigated failure for this franchise.
Why should Angels fans care if other fans root against them? It’s just baseball.
In many ways they shouldn’t. But you’ll have to have some thick skin to ignore the nay-saying that will arguably be more strident than most. Just like it’s not news when the Royals finish in 4th place or when non-A’s fans get excited to see a team like that over-achieve, it will be all over the news if the Angels fall short of their goals and people who seemingly have no vested interest in the Angels will get very excited when they fail.
“To your point and FWIW, I read somewhere today that the Angels have the best record in baseball since Trout was called up.”
Cincinnati appears to have a better record, 52-30 > 50-33.
Yep, Reds are better.
Then again, this vautned Angels team was an uninspiring 14-12 in July. Yes, there were some tough games in there, but there were plenty of games against the Clevelands, Baltimores, Kansas Citys, and Detroits (hey, most Angels fans I’ve read consider this a mediocre, at best, team, so man up and own your analysis of them) of the world. For all Moreno-DiPoto have poured into this team, it’s massively underachieving. That’s an inescapable and inconvenient fact.
You must be new to baseball.
Unfortunately Scioscia is the manager so winning the World Series is not possible. This guy has not made a proper decision since the Angels lost Madden, Black and Roenicke. As we find out, the trio were the braintrust that kept the team on track. Most of you think Scioscia is this Great manager well did you watch the game tonight where Texas wins 11-10. This great manager had “rolly polly” Morales on base with the score tied in the 9th and had Bourjas, Kendrick and Wells on the bench. Do you think Scioscia might replace the slowest guy on the planet (to include the Fox Sports West Girls) in case someone gets a hit. NO! Angels should have won 8-7 no Pujols HR required or bullpen in the 10th. When is the trading deadline for managers? Terry Francona would look great in the dugout.
curious why this site seems to go dormant anytime the Halos drop a few games in a row. Two days ago it’s all about cute tweets making fun of Yu Darvish, now it’s crickets.
A 4th grader could have pointed out in the offseason that the team’s true needs were bullpen help, not a $250 million hitter that may or may not play up to past performance. CJ has been mostly solid all year, but it looks like he’s rounding into his shaky playoff form just a bit early, no?
These past two games only solidify my belief that the Angels organization is doing it wrong. The cruelest possible outcome of the season is a one-game playoff with another wildcard team where we won’t even have Weaver to pitch.
It goes dormant when I’m on scouting trips. I’m actively looking for ways to make the site better and there will be a number of changes before the end of the season.
I still think you’re judging the Dipoto era a bit early. He’s only made a few moves, and it’s too early to judge just about all of them. Let’s see where the organization is at after Dipoto’s crew has a chance to draft some of their own guys.
“He’s only made a few moves, and it’s too early to judge just about all of them.
I think part of the point is that even after making just ONE BIG MOVE such as the Pujols signing, which reverberates throughout the organization, you can make a pretty clear assessment of what direction a team is headed, what it’s goals are, and have a reasonable sense of how that’s going to play out over the intermediate- and longer-term.
I have to agree with Joey here. With four writers on staff, there should be content of some kind pumping out on a daily basis, particularly when you factor in that this is an ESPN affiliate and the traffic could potentially gain exponentially if there’s a fresh take on things. For example, several of the other SweetSpot sites are run by only one person, and this is one of the least-populated ones out of the whole bunch.
“I still think you’re judging the Dipoto era a bit early. He’s only made a few moves, and it’s too early to judge just about all of them. Let’s see where the organization is at after Dipoto’s crew has a chance to draft some of their own guys.”
I also have a hard time agreeing with this. When you’re a GM of a major franchise playing with big-boy money, your clock of judgement begins the second you get anointed. I’ve still yet to see any rational person explain to me that giving Albert Pujols a 10-year contract was a smart idea. CJ Wilson’s fWAR/season should create about fair value over the length of his deal, so I’d be nitpicking if I said that was a bad signing.
Also, acquiring Zach Greinke might work in the short-term, but the Angels really mortgaged some talent from their already thin farm system, and I’m not sure another starter is what they needed. They should have been out looking for 2 other arms to insert into their bullpen to give Downs and Frieri protection once their unsustainable rates start to level off. But, like I said, the Angels really don’t have that many assets to sell.
As for your last point, I think drafting probably comes in 3rd in comparison to free agent signings and trades, which are the three main components to being a GM. It’s no wonder the majority of their 3rd-10th round draft selections were college relief arms. The problem is, none of them are worth any help to them THIS season, the season that the Angels have gone all-in.
The worst-case scenario for the Angels is that they will finish 2nd in the West and lose out to the Rays in the one-game playoff, and having Zach Greinke signed away to the Rangers in the offseason. But right now, that seems like the direction this big game is headed in. The Rangers will be able to sustain their business paradigm for the next 5-7 years, and the Angels window of success already feels like it’s closing.
Angels window is actually opening, LOL. Where do you get your material from? Jesus H man…LOL.