AAR: Aston’s Angels Report April 6, 2011 Game 1: Weaver Wills Another Win Vol. 2, Issue 2
Win 5-0 vs. Royals, Record: 1-0
The first game in the Albert Pujols era started today with a bang, but the pitching staff once again stole the show. All eyes were on Albert Pujols, who has performed at the highest level in baseball history over his first decade in the game, and the Angels hope his final decade follows the same path and ends with him being recognized as the best player in baseball history (and help bring them a couple more championship trophies along the way). The offense put five runs on the board, but Pujols wasn’t the center of the attack as expected, as he only reached base once with a late inning intentional walk, but the star of the show turned out to be the Angels ace starter (or at least one of their aces) Jared Weaver, once again. Weaver was dominant from the start of the game until his final pitch in the 8th inning, keeping his team in the game despite a lackluster offensive performance for most of the contest, holding it to a scoreless tie until the Angels bats finally awoke with a five run 8th inning to seal the victory.
Starting Pitchers Weaver was 18-8 last season, with a stellar 2.41 ERA, and nearly 200 strikeouts, and he seemingly continued right where he left off, hurling 8 scoreless innings, allowing only for hits, and striking out 10 Royals batters along the way. The Royals starter, left-hander Bruce Chen, equaled Weaver’s zeros on the score board, through his 6 innings of work, only allowing 3 hits while striking out 4 Angels batters, as he kept them off balance with excellent change of speeds and locations. It looked like it was going to be another game like last season, where a crafty left-hander keeps the Angels off the scoreboard, and the offense once again fails to support Jared Weaver in another superb outing, but they managed to come through at the last second against the Royals bullpen and give Weaver a much deserved victory, as he was still the pitcher of record when they finally produced.
Defense and New Faces Both teams brought pretty good defenses to the field, with gold glove winners in the outfield for both teams, along with the Angels gold glove winning shortstop from last season, Erick Aybar. The only glaring weakness on the Angels side is, of course, Mark Trumbo at 3rd base, who is still learning the position and going through some growing pains as he progresses. The teams basically put out the same fielders as they did last year, with only a couple notable new faces. Obviously the Angels have added Pujols, and their predominant catcher will be the new addition, former Rockies player, Chris Iannetta, but they also have DH Kendrys Morales, finally making his comeback after two seasons on the disabled list. The Royals have a lot of familiar young players from last year plugged in again, with the exception of rookie center fielder Lorenzo Cain, who replaced Melky Cabrera in the outfield when he left for San Francisco, and they brought in former Brewer SS Yuniesky Betancourt to play 2B for them this season too.
Game Summary This game went very rapidly as both starting pitchers were on their game, mowing through the opposing hitters, hardly dealing with any threats at all. Weaver threw mostly fastballs in the first couple of innings, and set the Royals down in order in the 1st and would have done the same in the 2nd, if not for a throwing error (and a bad call by the 1st base umpire) by Mark Trumbo. Trumbo fielded a grounder from Betancourt well, but his throw was offline, forcing 1B Pujols to dive for it and take his foot off the base, but replays showed that he actually reached back with his foot and touched the base before the runner got there, so he should have been called out. It did add a few more pitches to Weaver’s inning, but he retired the next batter on an easy pop out to end the inning. The Angels had a hit in each of the first two innings, when Kendrick doubled off the center field wall in the 1st inning, and Vernon Wells singled up the middle in the 2nd, but both innings ended on double plays. Pujols came up for his first Angel at-bat to a standing ovation in the 1st, following Kendrick’s double, and hit a sinking liner that the SS Alcides Escobar gloved, and Kendrick misread it and started to run for 3rd so he was easily doubled off 2nd base to end the inning. In the 2nd, Kendrys Morales made his first appearance for the Angels in about two years, and received his own standing ovation, before promply grounding into an easy double play to end that inning.
The only real jam that Weaver found himself in came in the 3rd inning, when the Royals got their first two hits of the game, back-to-back to start the inning, by catcher Bryan Pena and the SS Escobar, who each whacked fastballs into left field for solid singles, with the top of the lineup coming up to bat again. After that, Weaver went into the next chapter of his game plan, and started to mix in some off speed pitches into the assortment, and went on to strike out the next three batters, LF Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain (for 2nd time in game), and potential all-star 1B Eric Hosmer, to get out of the jam unscathed. In the bottom of the 3rd, Royals starter Bruce Chen got into the strikeout frenzy, getting Trumbo and Iannetta to swing and miss at high fastballs (even though they are less than 88 MPH) to start the inning. Peter Bourjox punched a slider into right field for a 2-out single, but he was picked off of 1st base after about five straight throws over there by Chen, to end the inning, so Chen still had faced the minimum despite giving up 3 hits in the game.
The 4th was a quick inning for both pitchers as Weaver retired the Royals in order on two pop outs and a check swing dribbler by RF Jeff Francoeur, who swung at the first pitch in each of his first two at bats in the game and made easy outs both times. Chen continued his rare strikeout flurry, getting Aybar to watch a fastball right down the middle on an 0-2 count for a called strike 3, and then Kendrick struck out on a ball in the dirt, but luckily the ball rolled past the catcher to the backstop, so Kendrick was able to make it to 1st. Pujols got another chance with a runner on base, but he could only hit a high pop fly to the 3rd baseman Mike Moustakas, and RF Torii Hunter followed with a weak fly out to left to end that inning.
Weaver and Chen both had 1-2-3 innings in the 5th, although there was a well hit fly ball that looked potentially dangerous at first, by both teams. Pena hit a deep fly ball to right that Hunter caught on the warning track for the 2nd out of that half of the inning, before Weaver struck out Escobar to end the inning. In the bottom half, Morales launched one deep into right center, but Cain tracked that one down as he ran right up against the wall for the 2nd out, and the game remained scoreless going into the 6th.
Weaver struck out the first two hitters in the 6th, getting Gordon and Cain swinging again, this time at offspeed breaking balls, and Hosmer followed by pulling an outside fastball to 2nd for an easy out on the first pitch he saw, so Weaver now had retired 12 Royals hitters in a row, as part of another dominant start. The Angels batters went down just as quietly in their half of the 6th, as Chen rolled through another 1-2-3 inning of his own, getting Aybar to lunge for a first pitch change up and pop out to 1st base for the final out.That turned out to be his final pitch of the game, but he kept the Angels off balance all game, inducing weak, unsure swings through out, and matching Weaver inning for inning as he went.
Weaver struck out the first hitter, DH Billy Butler, in the 7th, with a perfectly placed changeup over the outside edge of the plate. Francoeur followed and he finally restrained himself from swinging at Weaver’s first pitch, and got to a favorable 2-0 count, before whacking the predictable fastball into the left field corner for a 1-out double. Weaver had a little control issue with the next hitter Betancourt, taking the count to 3-0 with a couple bad pitches, but he redeemed himself by making a perfect pickoff move to 2nd base, to get Francoeur out at 2nd base for the important 2nd out of the inning, and maybe the play of the game. He then managed to get back to a full count against Betancourt, and induced a pop fly into foul ground that should have been caught by Trumbo, but once again he made a mistake, and didn’t even get a glove on the ball, giving Betancourt another chance at the plate. He (of course) capitalized on Trumbo’s mistake (not ruled an error since the ball landed foul) and blooped a single into left field to continue the inning. Weaver fell behind the next hitter, 3B Moustakas, with a 3-1 count, but induced a weak grounder to 2nd as he pulled an outside pitch to Kendrick at 2nd base for the easy last out of the inning…. After the 7th inning stretch, the Royals brought in a new pitcher in the bottom of the 7th, Aaron Crow, who was the polar opposite of Bruce Chen- a flame throwing right-hander. He plowed through the Angels best hitters, striking out Kendrick, Pujols, and Hunter, with his 96 MPH fastball and biting slider, to end that inning very quickly.
Weaver came back out toe pitch the top of the 8th inning, having only thrown about 80 pitches or so, and continued his dominance, retiring the side in order once again, including another strikeout of the Royals’ leadoff hitter, Alex Gordon to cap it off. Weaver didn’t walk a batter, and only allowed hits in two innings (two in each) and two of the base runners he allowed (one hit and one error) were the result of a defensive mistake (by Trumbo) so he was even better than the stat line indicated. That was all well and good, but he still needed his offense to produce something, if he was going to get anything but a no- decision (again), and more importantly, if the Angels were going to win this game.
The Angels hitters had to face off against Aaron Crow again, in his second inning of work after his dominant 7th inning, but this time they produced. Vernon Wells started the inning with a weak flyball to left field, pulling another outside pitch, which has become the disappointing norm for him in his Angels career. Morales followed and started a rally, with a good at-bat, battling against an 0-2 count, to hit a low 95 MPH fastball through the hole between 1st and 2nd, into right field for a one-out single. Youngster Alexi Amarista came in to pinch run, for the [still limping] Morales (who was never fast anyway), and Mark Trumbo scorched a line drive single to center on another 95 MPH fastball to put two runners on with one out. Iannetta followed by smacking another inside fastball into left field for their third straight hit, but because it was hit so hard, and the fact that Gordon had 20 outfield assists last year to lead the league, Amarista was held at 3rd base, so the bases were now loaded with one out. The Royals manager Ned Yost went out and replaced pitchers, bringing in another flame throwing right-hander, Greg Holland to try and get out of the jam. Peter Bourjos was up next with the potential tie-breaking run just 90 feet away, and he fell behind to a 1-2 count, before tapping a 96 MPH fastball towards 3rd base, and both the 3rd baseman and shortstop charged it, but sort of got in each other’s way, and the ball hit off each of their gloves, allowing all the runners to advance, allowing the Angels to finally score, to go ahead 1-0, and keep the bases loaded. The next batter was leadoff man Erick Aybar, and he came through with the big hit the Angels were waiting the whole game for, whacking an inside 94 MPH fastball over the 1st baseman, down the right field line. Two runs scored easily, and Francoeur ran over and cut the ball off before it rolled to the wall, but Bourjos flew around the bases in no time flat, and slid in across home plate safely, scoring all the way from 1st on the 3-run triple by Aybar, to give them a comfortable 4-0 lead. Kendrick came up with the runner at 3rd and one out, but he couldn’t put the ball in play, and struck out for the 2nd out, and the Royals opted to intentionally walk Pujols instead of giving him the chance to do damage. Hunter followed and punished them for their decision, when he hit a little blooper into right field, that fell just in front of Francoeur for another RBI, and a 5-0 lead. Wells came up for the second time in the inning, and popped out to the catcher, making his second out of the inning in the process, but the damage was done. It came at the perfect time, right before the Royals’ last at- bat, and just after what turned out to be Weaver’s last inning of work, ensuring that he was in line for the much deserved victory, and all they needed now were three more outs.
The Angels most reliable relief pitcher from last season, Scott Downs, came in to finish off the game, along with a defensive replacement at 3rd base- Alberto Callaspo (which will probably be a common late inning substitution until Trumbo gets more comfortable there). Downs continued the Angels dominant pitching theme, retiring the Royals in order, to end the game and secure the Angels first victory and shutout of the year.
There were a lot of 1-2-3 innings in this one, as pitching dominated for both sides for a majority of this quick-paced game, but timely Angels hitting prevailed in the end, and finally gave some support to their superb pitchers. The 5-0 score makes the game look like something of a blow-out, but the Angels were in a dog fight for most of the game, and surprisingly, Albert Pujols wasn’t at the center of the scoring inning, like one might think when they first see the final score. There were a few other aspects to the game that may have remained unnoticed as well, which I will briefly go over now:
BAD BASERUNNING
The Angels had a couple of bad base running plays, that could have cost them a chance at victory, if not for their offensive explosion in the 8th inning. In the 1st inning, Howie Kendrick made what could have been a major mistake, running for 3rd base on the low line drive by Albert Pujols and was doubled off of 2nd to end the inning. They didn’t have many scoring chances against Chen, and you always want to try to get to the starter early before they get into a pitching groove, so that was a bad mistake, especially since he would have been in scoring position still with the cleanup hitter, Hunter, coming up and two outs. You always have to make sure the low line drives get through before you try to advance, which you learn from a very young age, so that was a somewhat inexcusable mistake there. The other base running blunder came when Bourjos was picked off trying to steal 2nd base, in the 3rd inining, after a handful of throws over to 1st by Chen. There were two outs, and he wanted to get into scoring position, which is understandable but he should have had a better read on Chen’s move after all those throws over there and showed more patience. If the result of the game had been different, those would have been more heavily scrutinized base running errors.
NOT IN THE BOXSCORE
Mark Trumbo’s fielding issues did show up somewhat in the box score, with the error in the 2nd inning, but there is more to it than that for me. Obviously you could argue that the runner was out, so the inning should have been over, but he was called safe because of Trumbo’s poor throw, and that forced Weaver to make a few extra pitches in the inning when he shouldn’t have to. The next mistake Trumbo made didn’t rally show up in the box score, when he completely misplayed an easy pop fly near the dugout in the 7th , and it dropped about 3 feet away from him, allowing the hitter to get another chance to get a hit, and force Weaver to throw more pitches and face unnecessary stress. If not for those two blunders by Trumbo, Weaver would have been able to come back out for the 9th inning, and possibly pitched a complete game, having saved about 10 pitches off his total. If the Angels hadn’t scored in the 8th, and Weaver was still unable to come out to pitch the 9th (having racked up 97 pitches to that point), he wouldn’t have only qualified for a no-decision, all because of a couple defensive miscues.
FANTASY WATCH
For all you fantasy baseball players like me, Jared Weaver and Erick Aybar were the fantasy stars of this game. Weaver posted 10 strikeouts, in 8 shut out innings (0.00 ERA) and allowed just four hits (.444 WHIP), while earning the win, so he was virtually perfect for your team if you own him. Aybar only had one hit, but it was a triple that drove in three runs, and then he scored on Hunter’s single, so he added some important stats if you own him. The Royals Bruce Chen had a very impressive stat line as well, with a superb 0.50 WHIP, allowing only 3 hits in 6 innings, with his own 0.00 ERA, and a quality start to boot, if your league counts that statistic, but I’m sure very few people own him in any league….
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