Sacramento… I’ve been there once. Don’t remember much. Other than the humidity. And the capital building. The A’s play here now. In a AAA stadium. Yep. At least this game is at night. And by that I mean night night. Like when we used to have night games before they moved it to before 7 pm.
Anyway, Soriano was looking to keep this winning streak going. He went 6 innings giving up 3 runs on 6 hits striking out 4 and walking 4. A very poor quality start, but a quality start nonetheless. And he left in line for the win.
This was a back and forth affair, all while looking like a spring training game with good uniforms on. Since it was in a AAA stadium and it was Angels at A’s. Look, it is a battle for 4th place in the AL West, not the best teams in Baseball.
Highlighted Recap
The Angels struck first with a Nolan solo shot in the first.
The A’s did get that back immediately, however.
And took the lead right after.
However, the Angels were able to tie it in the 3rd thanks to Moncada ground out.
And then Ward gave them the lead with a 2 run blast.
The A’s battled back, getting closer in the 5th.
Soriano escaped the 6th and handed it over to the bullpen to hold onto the 1 run lead. To their credit, they got out to Jansen with the 4-3 lead. And Jansen notched the save. Angels win their 4th in a row!
Upcoming
3 more games in Sacramento including a day game on Thursday. Are you kidding me? A DAY game? In Sacramento? They will do that but not in Anaheim?
It happened again.
Saw the game was 1-0, turned it on. Then the ugly B1 happened so turned it off in the B2… woke up to see a W.
FWIW, with 13 HR’s, Ward is sitting in at #7 league wide. Shohei is #1 with 17.
I bet P12 was doing the shufflebot dance himself after Nolan’s 3 hit game.
Soriano is seemingly always pitching around a lot of traffic but, more times than not, gets the job done.
Is it me or has Soriano changed how his pitches now? Instead of overpowering with the fastball, he seems to throw a lot more alternative pitches at lower velocity and gets outs that way. Not as much strike out everyone anymore.
He does seem to be throwing less heat. Is this an intentional effort to pitch to contact and get deeper into games? I have no idea.
Good bullpen. Decent start. Taylor Ward. Wow.
nice work, pen! Ward is doing a great job re: trade value.
Other GM’s are going to be calling Perry about Ward, offering 2-3 crappy AA players and Perry’s gonna be like “Click” as he hangs up the phone !!!!
Probably true
A clean game out of the bullpen. Are we dreaming? Ward showing some glimpses of the old Ward. Keep it going!
Who leads the team in R/S, Hits, Doubles, BB, OBP, yup, that guy, funny stuff.
back in our day any player with a batting average under .270 was suspect. And he needed to have a .330 OBP. Times have changed in the swing from your heels era. Anyway, Schanny at .277 BA, .365 OBP.
Exactly.
.270 was an OK starting player and they either had to have power and/or speed in addition to justify their job.
Nowadays, it’s possible to have a team leader hitting .250. I hate it. I truly hate it.
Noted. It’s better than the height of the steroid era though when if you were hitting below .300, you were lagging. Some of the season numbers there were absurd and some teams had almost entire lineups of .275 and above.
I do think guys hitting .200 with power being regulars is odd. It was a little that way in the 70s with Kingman and guts like that — but they were more .230 hitters. Not .200 or .195.
I was probably a fan of the 80’s era of baseball stats. Plenty of .300 hitters with decent power but, not cartoonish numbers (steroid era).
2009 Halos FTW!!!!
Tough game, good win!
LT👶U!
🍍🍍🍍🍍
After watching thru both seasons for ‘Andor’ last week, every other effort in the Star Wars franchise is unwatchable by comparison IMO.
Just finished Season 2 made me want to watch Rogue One yet again.
It’s far and away better than the Woke trash that Disney is putting out with Star Wars Sequels Prequels and ancillary series.
I will be at Rancho Obi Wan this weekend.
I re-watched Rogue One immediately after finishing Andor and I struggled a bit.
I’m really over the “Cheesy” elements of the SW franchise. For example, the blind quasi-Jedi dude that can eliminated a dozen stormtroopers with a stick. Or the never-ending jokes from the converted Imperial droid.
Andor is incredible. Just a completely different piece of work than the rest of the franchise. We still have 4 episodes to go in season 2.
Andor is Star Wars for adults or the GOT of Star Wars.
The Dedre character is absolutely fascinating. As is the moral “grey” of the “good guys”.