Morning game vs Rays meant suffering for those out here in the west coast. Oh yeah and it was Canning today. That went better than expected, actually, going 5 and a third innings, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits, striking out 4 and walking 1. With a refreshed bullpen, this was winnable.
The Offense would have to do well, however, and with only 4 hits through 8, that was not the way to do it. Another 9th inning heroics would have to come and that meant tense watching. Again. I am so ready to not face these guys again this year.
Highlighted Recap
Canning allowed an RBI triple in the first.
And a sac fly would be the 2nd run allowed.
The Angels were being shut out until Trout pulled a Rickey Henderson and walked, stole 2nd, and 3rd, and being driven in by a sac fly.
Both bullpens were almost perfect, even Rengifo couldn’t mess it up.
But that meant going into the 9th down 2-1 with Sano, Thaiss, and Hicks. Well, make that Sano single, O’Hoppe pinch hit fly out, and a Hicks strikeout. Which meant the game came down to Rengifo. Who singled. Now with Adell pinch running, 2 were on for a healthy Drury who would bat for Nolan. And he grounded out.
Angels lose 2-1.
Upcoming
The Angels face their first non-east opponent… Cincinnati. In the NL Central. Still eastern time though. But then they come home to face Baltimore. Again. Who made this schedule?!
Is this sustainable? i think not..unfortunately.
Detmers won’t be this good all year… Tyler Anderson already showing signs of cracking…bullpen overloaded… recipe for a long losing streak.
I think most of the lineup will hit better than they have started out… but they continue to throw away close games …. on fielding and baserunning screw ups. I thought Wash was going to work on this stuff?
To summarize… gna be a long summer…
We could have won all four games of the series with some luck or lost all four with some bad luck. I will take a split on the road against a very good team. I am generally enjoying following the team so far. Better defense and situation hitting, more aggressive base running and stealing.
Funny, for me the team is performing about as I expected, just not how I expected it to happen. I expected the new staff to have an impact and they have. I expected the starting pitching to be better than most here, but not because 2 guys were lights out and the other 3 were awful. I thought they would all show improvement. The offense is not very good, not walking, not scoring much, striking out a lot, and little power except for Trout and Ward. On the whole I expected that to be the case, but I did not expect Trout and Ward to be so good and the rest to be so poor. I did not expect Rendon to hit and play as well as he has but I did expect the kids to play better. The bullpen is also about what I expected, a mixed bag. We have played 6 series and won only 1. If we had only won 2 of 3 from the Marlins, the team would be on pace for 68 wins, right in line with where many here thought they would be. The current pace is 77 wins, also consistent with many here. I think we’re right in line as a team with the majority of the predictions. I did not think we would be that susceptible to streaks either way which so far has been the case. I did expect them to be fun and interesting to watch, and they have bee. So far, their performance has been very consistent with Spring Training, not scoring many runs, but also not giving up too many runs, so many games look winnable. On the other hand, all of you have exceeded expectations, so there is that.
“We are what our record says we are.”
That said, I’m enjoying it on the whole.
The Positives: This team plays consistently hard & mostly smart. Jo Adell notwithstanding. They are stealing bases to compensate for the relative lack of punch in the lineup. Reid Detmers is looking like a home grown Ace, O’Hoppe is playing like the stud most of us anointed him to be, Rendon is trending in the right direction, Ward is an RBI machine and who isn’t loving the MNT resurgence – even though he’s washed.
The Negatives: Neto, Schanuel, Silseth, Moniak & Adell. While Moniak & Adell get a slight pass with Hicks absorbing at bats, Neto & Schanny have no such alibi. Silseth was bad and now he’s injures.
The Downright Fugly: The Stephenson signing/injury. This team essentially spent nothing in FA and their singular relevant signing doesn’t make it past the 1st week of Spring training.
Jeebus. Can you imagine the wasted money that the Angels free agency signings represent over the last decade-plus?!
Under the pitching positives :You missed the Cimber & Moore signings both have been pretty stellar so far. And after Garcia’s initial faux pas, hes been damn near perfect his last 7 outings too. And, of course Nobody anticipated Tyler Anderson to be as good as hes been for us this year
Under the negatives . Suarez Suarez Suarez. And it seems like pretty much everyone playing for us in our upper minor leagues has been a big disappointment so far.
Trout with 5 swiped bags thus far. So good to see him put his wheels to good use.
This schedule is weird
Are we 2-18 yet?
This team is way less horrible than I thought they would be. What do we have? Two ore weeks of “the gauntlet”? Not holding my breath, but if they get through this early season near .500 we may be in for at least an entertaining season.
I’m having fun most nights, that’s all I know. And I really didn’t expect to.
There is a fight to this team we haven’t seen in years, likely due to Wash. You can tell the big moments weigh on them and there is accountability waiting in the dugout when they mess up.
We’ve been so close in plenty of these early losses. Just gotta keep pushing.
on Stephenson….I bet he never pitches again
“Stephenson is expected to undergo a season-ending operation of some kind”
of some kind. What does that mean?
Probably either a traditional TJS UCL transplant or possibly the newer & fashionable UCL internal brace surgery ( I think this is what Ohtani had this off season) that apparently has a quicker recovery time.
Bionic arm replacement.
Of course next season it will break down mechanically and he’ll be in the shop for most of the season.
Will the Angels ever win a series against a quality opponent ?
Certainly. Everyone does. It just won’t happen often.
That was sort of a rhetorical question Hobbs…
In case you didn’t understand.
I felt you Frosty . This was definitely a series we should have won.
So we are now half way done with the AL East. Is there any hope for a winning record against that division or at 6-10 with 3 games remaining against the Bards and home and away series remaining against the Skanks and the Jays is that even a possibility?
The correct answer is no, they won’t win a series form a halfway decent team this year, maybe ever again.
And this is just a bit of humor Roy, no need to correct me.
They just split a series against one.
Is a split winning a series? No. Wait let me redo the math…..no, no it isn’t.
You can see why the Rays consistently win games during the regular season. They generally get quality starting pitching daily. They have a deep bullpen. They field well. Their hitting isn’t great but timely hits happen.
I think Ron Washington is trying to get the Angels closer to that. But it cannot happen overnight.
The angels got quality pitching today.
*But not a quality start
Nope can’t happen overnight or even over multiple seasons from the looks of it.
Thanks for the highlights, John Henry. Love the last one…the double play. Turned it fast and crisp, solid.
We let the Mariners catch up, and they get to play Colorado tomorrow.
9-10 record. At this pace we’ll win 90 if we play a 190 game schedule.
But seriously, so far it’s better than I expected
A split in this series seems about right. Take 2 of 3 in Cincinnati, .500 road trip, not bad.
Just don’t head back home and shit the bed. This team will need to win series at home.
But this franchise is synonymous w/shitting the bed. You’re asking them to go against the laws of nature! I mean baseball!
One game at a time. Let’s see if they can beat Cincy next game. And then we’ll see after that. At least they’ve been competitive.
Fun, well played game. Wish we won.
DFA Hicks
Heck yeah, pitcher’s duel. Old fashion baseball. I eat it up.
Hicks looks horrible at the plate right now and is not following the ball coming in. He should be on the bench or find a team down an OF and get a bullpen arm.
I hear there’s some kind of rule that you have to carry so many hitters and so many pitchers so if we got rid of Hicks we’d need to add a hitter.
Meanwhile, some good pitching today but it’ll be even better when Stephenson and Ky Bush get here. 😂
Stephenson will not be “getting here” until next year. The bull pen is not bad, it’s just not very deep. Add 3-4 more decent arms already in the organization, and it could be pretty good. have to see where the starting pitching is at the end of the year but we definitely will need to upgrade the hitting talent. A RF and a real 2B next year assuming Schanuel develops, and we could be competitive.
Like Soto and Kim.
We should throw in Burnes so we have an ace too.
I know some people like to laugh about getting a “rich new owner”, but if Arte did sell, and we got a new owner that spent like Cohen and signed those 3 players, I’d be fine with that.
Not sure we could pull that off but but if we could, we would definitely look different. Soto wants unrealistic money though I believe. He will only be 26 so he should be good for a while and in 2 years, Rendon is gone, along with Stephenson and Anderson.
Humorously as to the stacked five person OF — Moniak hasn’t been good; nor has Adell; nor Hicks. So it doesn’t really matter who plays.
Sure, but we have team control for Moniak and Adell, whom with playing time can play their way into securing a spot in our longterm plans. If they fail, they fail.
No matter what Hicks does this season, good or bad, he has no place in longterm plans. There is no reason he should get any PT over Mickey or Adell. That should be obvious.
I agree about Hicks but I think Wash is playing for wins, which I appreciate
8th straight losing season to the Rays.