Following Sunday’s 7-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics Angels Reliever Chris Bootcheck said, “It’s tough to swallow”. What’s tough to swallow? Well, just minutes earlier Bootcheck served up a 2-out grand slam on the first pitch to A’s second baseman Mark Ellis.
“Off the bat I thought I got it, then it took a hard left and I wasn’t sure,” Ellis said. “This one I had my doubts about. We really needed that.”
Ellis was sure right about that. Despite the Athletics 35-29 record they trail the Angels by 4.5 games and will have an uphill battle the rest of the season to compete with the Halos.
Prior to Sunday’s loss, the Angels had just reeled off an 8 game consecutive winning streak including a series sweep of the hopeless Mariners in Seattle. The Mariners’ currently own Major League Baseball’s worst record (22-41) despite having the league’s 9th highest payroll ($117 million).
John McLaren, Seattle’s Manger recently had this to say about his team’s performance. “Bleep bleep, bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep, bleep bleep bleep!” or something along those lines. If you’re interested in hearing the actual rhetoric you can check it out here.
Now I was lucky enough to be in Seattle during the Angels three-game sweep of the Mariner’s and watched the first two contests in which the Angels played fundamental baseball; pitching, hitting and running their way to victories in each contest. While at Safeco I was able to get a feel for the overall apathy and deterioration of what was once a great baseball experience in the late-90’s and early 2000’s. Mariners’ fans were jovial following a Richie Sexson infield flyball commenting that they “wished he had struck out instead” since they had a bet he would K’ three times in the game (he only struck out twice).
Still as a person who grew up in the Northwest and watched those Seattle teams reach such great heights only to have their hopes come crashing down, I found it quite fitting that a team with such great hopes coming off a 2nd place AL West finish in 2007 could reach so low. As I and a posse of Mariner-fan friends were leaving the ballpark I heard what could only be a ray of hope, or perhaps a knock against Los Angeles. “At least we got the Seahawks!”
– Vlad Guerrero was back in action on Friday night after missing the entire Seattle series with a knee injury. Doctors diagnosed him with knee hyper-flexion which I can only assume means “Vladdy is hitting .250 so perhaps he needs some rest”.
– Another Angel returned to lineup in time for the series against the M’s. Howie Kendrick who had been on the DL since April 14th started all three games against the Mariners going 3-for-14, lowering his batting average to an unsightly .376.
– I love to knock the guy, but besides Torii Hunter, Garrett Anderson has been one of the only consistent producers for the Halos all season. Despite an April slump where the slugger was hitting only .231, he turned it on in May batting .343 with 3 HR’s and 16 RBI. Compare his production to that of Gary Matthews and perhaps we should all take a deep look inside to see where the offense’s problem truly lies.
– If I had one wish, I would wish for a pool. If I had two wishes, it would probably be for one of these.