Aston’s Angels Report 2012 [Game 10-13 vs Athletics- W, 3 L]

AAR: Aston’s Angels Report                                 April 21, 2012
Game 10-13: [Almost] The Worst Series Ever       Vol. 2, Issue 6

     Series #4 (W, L, L, L vs Oakland Athletics), Season Record 4-9

      After losing their first three series, the Angels looked forward to coming back home to face off against probably one of the worst teams in the majors, but their fate remained the same as it has so far in this young season. They started off well and looked poised to possibly start a winning streak following a 6-0 opening game victory on Monday, April 16th, but then they reeled off three terrible games, each seemingly worse than the next, with variety of errors, whether they were in the field, at the plate, silly mental errors or a big mistake by their manager costing them a possible victory, they all resulted in another losing streak.

       The team gave their ace starter Jared Weaver the early lead in game 1, after a first inning homerun from Kendrys Morales to give them a 3-0 lead, and they went wire to wire for an impressive shutout victory, leading me to believe that they may have finally turned the corner and may start to put together some consecutive victories. Morales went 3-for-4 with a double and the 3-run homer in the 1^st inning, which was his first homerun since 2010 (and his first hit in about a week this season), and Weaver retired the first 12 batters he faced, en route to another dominating performance (6 2/3 innings, 5 hits, 6 strikeouts). The Angels scored 3 more in their last at-bat in the 8^th, including another RBI from Morales who doubled home Pujols to start the inning, then a bases loaded walk, and a wild pitch pushed home the final two runs. The A’s didn’t even get a runner to 3^rd base until their last at-bat, and that was only because of two back-to-back errors by Angels infielders with two outs in the 9^th, and the way their offense looked in this game, fans like me were licking their chops with expectation for the remainder of the series.

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       Game 2 of the series was a game that Dan Haren should have earned the victory, after going 6 2/3 innings, allowing a lone run on five hits (a homerun by Daric Barton), but a terrible managerial decision probably cost them the game in this one. Both teams went scoreless for the first 4 innings, and then Haren allowed the homerun to Barton with two outs, on his only mistake pitch of the game. He showed much better control of his pitches throughout the contest, throwing a lot of strikes, including first-pitch strikes to a large majority of the batters he faced, dictating each at-bat and proving why he is one of the best pitchers in baseball.

      His offense was providing much support, however, so they found themselves down 1-0 going into the bottom of the 5^th. They managed to manufacture a run in that inning, after back-to-back singles by Wells and Callaspo to lead off the inning, and a couple of productive groundouts to finally push home the tying run. They added one more in the bottom of the 6^th, with a two-out rally and a little help from the Oakland pitcher, Tyson Ross. After the first two made outs, Morales singled and then advanced to 2^nd on a fortuitous wild pitch from Ross, and Torii Hunter took advantage of the situation with a go-ahead RBI single, to make the score 2-1.

      Haren got into some trouble in the top of the 7^th, when rookie Cuban phenom Yoenis Cespedes singled with one out and was advanced to 2^nd by a surprise 2-out bunt single from the catcher Kurt Suzuki. With the left-hand hitting Barton due back up, manager Mike Scioscia decided to pull Haren, even though he had just thrown 85 pitches, to try and maintain their miniature lead. Scott Downs came in and struck out Barton with apparent ease, to preserve the lead, going into the 7^th inning stretch.

      That was not the questionable move that I was alluding to earlier; that move came in the next inning, after the Angels did nothing offensively in their half of the 7^th. Scioscia brought in Kevin Jepsen to pitch the 8^th, and that is when the tide turned for the worst, from the Angels’ perspective, at least. Jepsen struck out the first batter he faced, with impressive overpowering pitches, but then he walked the next two batters, Cliff Pennington, and Jemille Weeks, to put the tying run on 2^nd. The CF Coco Crisp (yes that’s his name) took advantage of the fact that Jepsen had control issues, sitting on a first pitch fastball, and whacked it back up the middle for a game tying RBI single. With runners on 1^st and 2^nd now, Jepsen remained in the game, and threw a hanging slider on a 1 ball-2 strike count and Josh Reddick doubled down the right field line for an RBI double (it would have scored two if it hadn’t bounced into the crowd for a ground rule double). It was now 3-2 in favor of Oakland, and Scioscia finally changed pitchers, bringing in the rookie David Carpenter to face the dangerous Cespedes with runners at 2^nd and 3^rd and still just one out. He threw too many sliders, and Cespedes finally got hold of one and lined a single to left to score two more, and make the score 5-2 Oakland. I can list a few things wrong with this inning, but to me the biggest mistake was bringing in Jepsen in the first place; why the hell wouldn’t you leave in your absolute best relief pitcher, Scott Downs to pitch the 8^th, when he only faced one batter in the 7^th, and is anything but a left-handed specialist (like so many other lefty relievers these days). He can get out righties just as well as lefties, but for some reason Scioscia went with Jepsen, who has always had control issues, no matter how impressive he was in the exhibition games in spring training (he spent most of last year in the minors because he can’t throw strikes consistently, for one thing). Then to make matters worse, Jepsen was allowed to continue pitching after he walked the second and third batter in the inning, and even if Scioscia didn’t want to pull him after the first, he really should have considered it after the second, but he just left him out there to throw one right down the middle to Crisp and then the wheels fell off… I blame this entire loss on Mike Scioscia, although the Angels offense could have made this game less of a nail biter if they had just scored a little more while Haren was out there (and maybe he wouldn’t have been pulled when he was in thr first place, and the result would differ substantially)…Vernon Wells did add a solo homerun in the 9^th, but it was basically meaningless (as many of his homeruns seemed to be last year) as they started the inning down 5-2, facing the Oakland closer Grant Balfour, who retired the next two batters to seal the 5-3 Oakland victory.

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      Game 3 was quite possibly the worst offensive performance I’ve seen this season, and it didn’t help that Ervin Santana again allowed a 1^st inning 3-run homerun, just like he did against the Yankees in his last start, to put his team in the early hole once again. He allowed three straight hits with one out in the 1^st, the last of which being the homerun to Cespedes, and just to add insult to injury, Ervin had two strike counts on all the batters he allowed hits to, but just couldn’t put them away, throwing weak sliders to allow the hitters to make contact. Granted the first two hits, by Pennington and Reddick were more of the bloop variety, Cespedes certainly didn’t bloop the 1 ball- 2 strike slider he saw, launching it deep into left field for a no doubter homerun.

       Former Angel Cy Young award winner, Bartolo Colon, was the Athletics starter, and he completely dominated the Angels offense throughout the game in this one. He only allowed a few two-out singles, and the Angels didn’t even get a runner to 2^nd base until the bottom of the 8^th, when it was already 4-0 (another homerun allowed by Santana in the 6^th). Near the end of his outing, Colon threw a ridiculous number of consecutive strikes- something like 39 straight strikes, and nearly every Angels batter was facing a 0 ball-2 strike count each at bat, allowing Colon to throw whatever he wanted to get them out, and they looked like last year’s offense, which was beyond futile at times. The Angels only managed to scare him a couple of times with a couple of deep fly balls, from Pujols and Wells at different times in the game, but, as they all know, the ball doesn’t travel well at night in Anaheim stadium, and those balls died in the gloves of Oakland outfielders’ gloves near the wall, en route to an ugly 6-0 loss.

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     Now the Angels played game 4, just trying to salvage a series tie, and avoid their fourth straight series loss (and 3^rd straight game lost). They again turned to the starter that had been their losing streak stopper, CJ Wilson, making his first start in front of the home crowd as a member of the Angels. Oakland used young lefty Tommy Milone, whom they received in the trade for Gio Gonzalez in the offseason. While the Angels may have been happy not to have to face the Gonzalez, who had his way with them for the most part last season, they couldn’t put together enough hits to do any damage against Milone either.

        They fell behind early again, when Wilson walked Seth Smith after getting the first two outs in the 2^nd inning, then threw a cut fastball that didn’t cut inside enough, to Suzuki, who doubled down the left field line to score Smith, and give the Athletics the 1-0 lead. The game turned for the worst in the 4^th inning, when Wilson walked the first two batters in the inning. He has had trouble with his control somewhat in the season, but he worked out of the jams he caused with walks in both of his other starts, and he only has himself to blame for what happened in this game. He forced Smith to hit pull off of a good outside pitch, and tap one towards Wilson, who grabbed it near the 3^rd base line. He made the biggest mistake(s) of the game, first when he neglected to throw the ball to 3^rd for the easy force out, as the runner got a late break from 2^nd and would have been an easy out, and then to make matters (MUCH) worse, he lobbed the ball over to 1^st base, and the ball rode into the runner, out of 1B Pujols’ reach, and went into right field. Not only did two runs score on the throwing error, but Smith went to 2^nd base, and he eventually scored on a single to make the score 4-0 Oakland. Instead of simply throwing the ball to 3^rd to at least get the force out at the base (and possible a double play, with a throw to 1^st), to keep runners at 1^st and 2^nd (keeping the double play in order) with one out, the A’s scored two, put another runner at 2^nd and still had no outs in the inning. It was like a play out of my little league games when I was 10, but this was a major league game with major repercussions, not to mention tens of thousands of paying fans, who were forced to watch absolute crap. Oakland scored 3 runs, with just one hit, after two walks and that awful error in that inning, but the Angels had plenty of chances to get back into the game.

       In the next inning, the bottom of the 4^th, the Angels finally put numbers on the board, after Pujols led off with a line drive double, and Wells doubled him home one out later to make the score 4-1. Mark Trumbo followed that with a rocket line drive that bounced off the wall, to score Wells (4-2), but because it was hit so hard, the left fielder, Reddick, was able to throw the ball into 2^nd and hold Trumbo to a single. Iannetta grounded out to 2^nd, moving Trumbo to 2^nd, and Erick Aybar hit an infield single, on a grounder to the shortstop, but Trumbo was held at 3^rd. Peter Bourjos continued his poor hitting this season and ended the inning with a groundout, so the Angels’ bad luck continued, when you consider that the ball Trumbo hit should have been a double (or even a homerun) and he may have been able to score after the next two batters.

       The Angels pitchers managed to hold down the Athletics’ offense from then on, as Wilson, Jepsen, LaTroy Hawkins, and Jason Isringhausen combined to shut out the A’s until the end, but the Angels offense failed miserably to capitalize on numerous chances. They got two runners on with two outs in the 5^th, but Wells failed to knock in the run. The A’s changed pitchers in the 6^th, bringing in youngster Fautino De Los Santos (who closed out game 3), and they looked like they were going to break through, as he walked Trumbo and allowed a single to Iannetta, to put runners on 1^st and 3^rd with no outs. The A’s brought in different pitcher- someone I’ve never heard of, Jordan Norberto, and he proceeded to retire Aybar (who inexplicably swung at the first pitch) on a groundout so he continued his futility (and who was given a four-year contract extension earlier in the day). Then he struck out the struggling Bourjos, and induced a inning-ending groundout from Iannetta. All they had to do was hit a fly ball in one of those first two at bats with the runner at 3^rd, to at least score one, but they couldn’t even manage that, and it was now apparent that this probably wasn’t going to be their game.

       The Angels got two more hitters on base in the 7th, with a another double from Pujols (his 3^rd of the game) and a walk to Hunter, but Wells and Trumbo failed to capitalize. That was really their last chance to make a push in the game, as they couldn’t solve another former Angel, Brian Fuentes, in the 8^th, and then had to face Balfour in the 9^th again. Luck was on their side momentarily in the 9^th, when Pujols reached 1^st base with one out, on a throwing error by 3^rd baseman Josh Donaldson, but that lasted about a second, as Hunter hit into game ending double play grounder.

        Coming into the series, it looked like they would at least have a good chance at finally winning one, and after game 1, it looked like they could potentially start a substantial winning streak, but all that hope and expectation fell apart as the series progressed, and now they find themselves in a hole that grows deeper and deeper as the days go by. After leading the league in runs during the spring training, and their pitching seemingly improved over what was one of the best staffs last season, it looked like they were on their way to a great season. Now I wonder when and if they will get to the .500 mark, much like last season, where they barely broke even by the halfway point in the season. It’s time for the offense to wake up, the defense (including the pitchers) to use their brains and be professional, and the pitching staff to get back to their winning habits. The offense has been off, the defense has been lacking at times, their starters have surrendered too many runs, and their bullpen has the 3^rd worst ERA in the league (after being 2^nd best in the league last year), so the whole team needs to shape up…. And that includes the coaching staff as well, because other teams aren’t just going to lie down.