The Halos won two of three against the Texas Rangers this weekend, seeing a pair of strong starts and modest offensive outputs.
On Friday night Jered Weaver turned in seven outstanding innings and held Texas to just one run while the offense, led by the explosive combination of T-N-T and Albert Pujols, plated six runs and left little doubt as to how things would go. Final score: 6-1, Angels.
Saturday saw a very different result. Ervin Santana managed just five outs, a third of what the Halos will expect from him going forward. Santana allowed eight hits and six runs before Mike Scioscia replaced him. The bullpen was solid but unspectacular, and the Angels had no answer for Yu Darvish, who surrendered just three hits in seven innings of work.
Trout went 1-for-3 with a walk on Saturday and stole his 31st base of the season. He’s good.
The final game of the series game was ESPN’s Sunday night game. Dan Haren made his first start since July 3 and held his own, allowing just a pair of runs over six innings. The Angels scored first after Trout led off the first with a triple, then came home on a ground-rule double by Albert Pujols.
With the Halos leading the game 3-2 in the bottom of the 7th, Bobby Wilson smacked a solo schwinger to left field for his first home run of the season. Three batters later, Pujols blew the game open with a two-run schwinger of his own to bring the score to 6-2.
The Angels tacked on an insurance run in the 8th inning, but failed to completely capitalize after having their first three batters reach base safely. In the bottom of the 9th, things got dicey as Texas loaded the bases against Ernesto Frieri, but the Angels’ closer (well, sort of closer) settled in and finished the series by striking out Josh Hamilton.
With a half-game lead over the final Wild Card contenders (Oakland and Baltimore) the Halos will take on the Kansas City Royals tomorrow as CJ Wilson takes the bump against Bruce Chen.
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Good series win. Hopefully Haren gets back on track (I’m betting he does) and the Angels continue carrying a dominant 1-2-3 at the top of the rotation and back to being the top of the class in pitching, basically giving them a good chance against anybody. Small hiccups happen, oh well. The Detroit series was more of the exception to the rule. Just as Trout might have an 0-4 night, the Angels will have a 4-6 stretch. Santana is basically done for the year, I have no faith in him anymore. Richards is a better bet right now and so Santana’s spot will be a big questions mark from hereon. Bottom line, Angels have been playing winning baseball in the grand scheme of things and will continue to do so.
“Nobody will be complaining about playing Detroit 7 times.”
-Paris
Man, I could post that over and over again. LOL.
“The Detroit series was more of the exception to the rule.”
Let’s put the Detroit series in perspective. Yes, it was on the road, but you managed to have a 4-game series against them and face ever starter not named Justin Verlander and you still lost 3 games. Your only win that series was against a guy making his 2nd big league start. Sorry, you don’t get to consider yourself among the “elite” of all of MLB and have a series like that.
I’ve seen numerous Angels fans of late declare that they are one of the top 3 teams in the AL (or even all of MLB) and are right there behind the Yankees and Rangers. I disagree. The Angels are one of a group of teams – which includes the Tigers, White Sox, A’s, and possibly Boston/Tampa Bay – that are pretty much interchangeable as the 3-7 teams in the AL.
“Bottom line, Angels have been playing winning baseball in the grand scheme of things…”
Yes, they are 9-11 in their last 20 games…that sure sounds like “winning baseball” to me. LOL.
“Now the Yankees have not one, but two of the most overrated players of the last decade. Yippe.”
Wanna know why I troll this site and others inhabited by the Angels’ biggest fans. Because of statements just like this one that exhibit a disgusting level of hubris and disrespect for other teams and their players. Comments like Andrew’s are common throughout Angels Nation. It is a disgrace.
Man do you take my Tweets more seriously than I intend them to be taken. Ichiro and Jeter are two of the best players of my lifetime.
Follow me on Twitter if you want to address MY tweets.