Angels Drop 1st Straight in Oakland

Angels 5 Athletics 8

Dylan Bundy followed up his first win of the 2021 season by crashing and burning in grand fashion.

You might be hard-pressed to recall that the Angels held the lead in this game. Juan Lagares started the trainwreck off right by sending a screamer over the yellow line the other way in the second inning.

4 batters later, the score remained 1-0, but the Sean Manaea who had been absolutely unbeatable the last few weeks had already allowed 5 hits and a walk and was 50 pitches deep. Some might have seen this as a promising sign, but the inability to properly sequence hits would continue for quite some time. It would not, however, be the biggest detriment to the chances at a 7th straight win that the Angels would experience as Dylan Bundy promptly followed it up by allowing a 2-run bomb.

One would be forgiven for thinking this was a manageable position to be in. Bundy got out of the inning, but was back on the bump not too long afterward for another inni –excuse me– out. Once Mark Canha got plunked, the game’s doom was spelled.

Tony Kemp followed Canha’s one trillionth HBP on the season by drawing out a plate appearance where he quickly landed in an 0-2 hole for 8 pitches before launching an RBI double and Bundy was done. Not done as in pulled, but done as in done. A sac fly, walk, double, and single followed up in rapid succession and no one can be bothered to look up who hit them.

At some point during the onslaught I blinked and it was the 7th inning. Jared Walsh was up to bat with Max Stassi on second (HBP) and Jose Iglesias (single) on first. He punched one under the glove of a diving Olson and into the corner.

And then Bally Sports Twitter failed to effectively capture what Lagares did.

Then Fletcher had his fourth consecutive hit on the night against a fresh Sergio Romo.

The bottom of the 7th was both scary and topical when a splitter got away from Junior Guerra and, in an attempt to dodge it, Chad Pinder’s helmet flew off his head. The ball struck him square in the back of the head. This sparked a lot of talk from the TV team about the recent information that came out today on the subject of sticky substances. Whether it applies or not to the majority of the hit batsmen on the night is another question, but Guerra in particular did seem a bit different than usual:

And then that was it. The Angels continued to hit sporadically, putting up a surprisingly high 14 knocks on the night in total. They also drew 3 walks and a hit by pitch and still managed to look absolutely futile (It was very encouraging to see 4-hit games from both David Fletcher and Jose Iglesias though).

It is what it is. You can’t win them all. Let’s just pull out another 6 game winning streak starting tomorrow.