Something people forget is that Patrick Sandoval was acquired in a trade with Houston. Yep, way back when the Angels shipped Martin Maldonado to them in 2018. Ohtani was sad at the time, but I am sure he and the rest of the team appreciate how good Sandy is and how he solidifies this rotation greatly.
So how did he do against his former team? Well, not well… see, despite his best efforts, Houston really has Sandy’s number and showed it yet again today. 4 runs in 6 and a third. Honestly, could have been worse. Especially since he didn’t have the best help out there in the field.
Good thing the offense can score, and that was the difference, that and a perfect bullpen performance. Here is how they did it.
Highlighted Recap
Angels struck first, with a Renfroe home run in the 2nd.
Sadly, the game was tied up in the 3rd by Bregman being a jerkface as usual.
And then they took the lead.
Then it got worse with another hit and a bad fielding mishap made it 3-1 Astros.
Luckily, this Angels team can hit good. And Ohtani drove in a run in the 3rd.
And so did Rendon
Too bad the Astros got the lead right back in the 5th.
It was almost worse, but Renfroe threw out a runner going for a double.
Ohtani tied it up again in the 5th with yet another double.
The bullpen held for the 7th and 8th, allowing the Angels to take the lead in the bottom of the 8th with a triple by Drury!
Thaiss then added an insurance run with a sac fly, 6-4 Angels!
Estevez came in to get the save and shut down the Astros, Angels win!
Upcoming
With the win, the Angels secure second place in the AL West and become the 10th team to get to 20 wins this season. It was much needed, after the last two days have been most unkind. Another one tomorrow, Ohtani against the Astros!
Let’s sweep the Cheaters and start 4-2 in the home stand against division rivals.
How about winning the series, huh? People talking about “sweep” again before we have even clinched the series win…
We still have 22 games left against all the Texasses so let’s take em one game at a time.
(Channeling my inner Soth)
Always good to have big dreams!
Yep. But achieving big things starts with smaller steps…
The 1st win was one of those smaller steps
Moore and Estevez have been a great remedy for my late inning PTSD.
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With our offense, I feel like giving up 4 – 5 runs a game will get us a W more often than not. Last year, if we gave up more than 2 we were screwed.
The offense is certainly less offensive than it used to be. Great additions in Renfroe (our HR leader) but also Urshela, Drury and the return of Rendon.
What was great about the win was the Angels scored and tied the game immediately after the Cheaters took the lead. They hung out with them long enough until they got the lead, and never looked back.
Two years ago, this kind of game would have been over by the 3rd inning, when they took a 3-1 lead, and maybe the Cheaters tack on some more for good measure.
Before the absolute collapse yesterday I thought about this. We have seen this team respond on the offensive side more regularly than times past this season. A few more shutdown innings will lead to a few more wins than we’ve had in recent years.
BTW what’s a shutdown inning?
That is not allowing the other team to score in the half inning right after your own team has scored.
Houston (I hope you continue to) have a problem.
Happy? Yes? No? Hee haw?
Ugly wins need loving too. I’ll take it. Sandy survived a meh night but didn’t suffer a Detmers-Anderson explosion event. Good all around effort through the line up. Matt Thaiss? Are you trying to actually stay here?
I came to realize tonight that I am Yordan Alvarez’s bitch. He is a scary man who scares me. every time he comes to the plate against us I expect him to kill a fan in right field. He hit that double tonight and I was grateful, like he’s punched me square in the face so many times I was happy with the gut cause less blood. It would make me very happy if the Angels stifled him more often.
Dear Angels. Feel free to win again tomorrow.
Nice win. Needed also.
Glad to see us back in the win column.
Good to see Taylor Ward having a great start to the month.
Don’t worry. He’ll have a bad game again sometime soon and we’ll get the “I never really bought into Ward” comments.
it is the way
It’s nice to see Thaiss finally getting in some quality at bats.
Between him and Wallach, catcher isn’t much of a black hole as I worried it would be when Logan went down.
Who knows? Maybe Thaiss is just another Taylor Ward late bloomer type.
Bat or glove? cause gloves got a along way to go.
He is serviceable for now, but if the bat stays then maybe he can function as backup with O’Hoppe back and stick at OF/bench when we bring up Quero (in a couple of years).
Adell is that you?
Haven’t heard about him lately. Is he playing with Dallas McPherson now?
I thought the Halos screwed up Thaiss’ development over the last few years.
First a catcher, then first base, then the hot corner.
And, now, back to catching.
Even though Thaiss didn’t tear it up in the minors, the ability and potential has always been there….
Would love to see Angels have one more guy in the bullpen. Maybe it’s someone in minors, but Moore/Estevez have been great in the sample we’ve had. Need Rendon to show he’s fully healthy, the throws are still frightening every time. Good win to get to open the series. Time to turn the page and keep it rolling tomorrow.
I vote for 2 more guy.
Andrea True Connection – More, More, More (1976) – YouTube
How do you like it?
Nice win. If we can get the starter past the need to use the crappier parts of the pen, we’ve got a good back end. Nice to be able to win when Trout has a rough one.
Man. I want a solid pen, but at the same time, we need some starters to get through 6 innings more often. It’s not realistic for us to demand the bullpen have 9 highly effective arms on call ready to horf down 4 innings per game every game. I can’t demand that our “good back end” consist of six guys. It’s just not gonna happen.
That’s for sure a lot of guys to load on your back end.
Well the silver lining of the last two games was that Estevez was very well rested to close this game against the bangers.
Light that baby up!
That first game of series win is also so nice… keep it going.
I’m really curious to see where we are at the 44 game mark and then the 56 game mark, to compare with last season. You know, ‘cause we were 27-17 and then something else.
I like 20-16 now, ahead of the cheaters. I’m not worried about Texas
Both the Asstros and the Rangers are playing without their best players that soon will return. Our defense has worried me since day one and it’s proving we saw this coming. I did not see Rendon having fielding problems. We still are in the hunt for a playoff spot.
Here’s to hoping Nevin’s comments aren’t just gonna go without follow through. Defense and fundamentals have been sloppy. It’s nice to have flexible roster with guys who can play around diamond. Better to have guys who can play well around diamond.
If we are gonna have a lot of multiposition guys there’s gonna be some defense sacrificed for that and I get it. I like it. Hitters who hit baseballs are more fun for me. But the over all defense does have to get better.
I think it’s yesterdays stats, but the Angels are tied 2nd to worst (Braves,Red Sux) in errors with 24. The Pirates have 23. MLB average is 17. We don’t have to be the 87 Cardinals, but we need to get into that middle area.
In this roster construction we don’t need 9 gold glovers. Consistent competency would be enough. The errors by Drury at 1st, the bobbling of balls, the errant throws all around. Just cleaning up the overall play will go a long way in this teams success. Free passes from pitchers and porous defense have been killer thus far. Like you said find the middle ground and hope the offense covers other flaws.
Uh I know the official scorers can be generous but Drury doesn’t have any errors at first base this year. he does have 1 error at second base which is where he’s played the majority of his games this season
Hmmm… I seem to remember about four or five balls Drury has booted at 2B. Are you sure he has only 1 official error there? If so the scorers have been exceedingly kind.
Fooled again by those Lylin’ eyes Frosty.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=drurybr01&t=f&year=2023
Very kind scoring…
The guy with the most errors is the guy who hasn’t moved around the diamond.
Our Bullpen is like a box of candy, you never know what your going to get.
Chocolates?
Carmel Chews.
What you get kinda depends on who you get.
Too many pieces in the box are marshmallows, nuts, and fruits.
I’m really liking the Moore-Estevez shutout combo!
Estevez is 8 for 8 in saves.
Offense is doing great. Nevin has to figure out pitching and defense. Great win still to beat the cheaters.
We could be the Rays if we had Bochy instead of Nevin
or Sosh.
You gotta love Moore and Estevez. We just need a solid 7th inning guy not named Tepera or Loup,
Wantz?
Devenski?
There was a good article on Loup in the athletic yesterday. Apparently, the organization is asking pitchers to throw more off-speed stuff with the idea of getting weak contact because of the rule changes and it’s not working well for Loup who has also gotten extremely unlucky.
Need to win tomorrow too.
And the day after that!
Indeed. A Tuesday loss basically nullifies the Monday win..