I don’t know how many of you spent your Friday evening alone on the couch watching pathetically awesome offensive baseball, but I’ll tell you what, those who did witnessed something that may not be seen again in a lifetime. When hall of fame announcer Vin Scully is at a loss for words and describes during the final inning that what he is seeing is “simply unbelievable” you know you’re witnessing history. The word “unbelievable” might be exaggerated in today’s world of marketing slang and general rhetorical non-sense but when’s it’s used to describe a baseball game by a man who has personally called over 10,000 of them it surely is believable.
What happened on Saturday night wasn’t simply a no-hitter, which in itself is a rarity, occurring only about two-times per season. What Jered Weaver and Jose Arrendondo did was to combine on a no-hitter in a losing effort. Now my baseball knowledge is good, but isn’t that good, so I had to check with my good friends over at baseballreference.com to find out that this was only the fifth time since 1900 that the winning team of a Major League game failed to get a hit.
“Any loss, no matter what, is tough,” Weaver, the former Long Beach State Dirtbag said. “I’m sure you guys are going to eat this up a lot more than I am. I don’t call it a no-hitter for me. I only went six innings.” Despite the loss, Jered Weaver looked very sharp, delivering fastballs on the outside corner and breaking off a tight spiraling curve for strikes in many different counts. Weaver struck out six, walked three and hit a batter. Chone Figgins pinch-hit for him in the seventh with two outs and a runner on second, but grounded out.
– Chone Figgins suffered an abrasion on the knee when he slid during the Angels’ series in Washington, causing him to miss time in the Freeway Series against the Dodgers. The abrasion became infected and Figgins began taking antibiotics to clear it up on Thursday, but they had not taken effect well enough for him to play on Friday. Figgins did manage to play in both Saturday (pinch hit) and Sunday’s game going 0-for-4 with a strike out.
– OF Vladimir Guerrero was back in the lineup Friday after missing Wednesday’s game with stomach issues. Guerrero extended his hitting streak to 16 with an infield single in the fourth inning. He is batting .420 (29-for-69) in June and helping to propel my fantasy team into 4th place. Quote of the week – Angels Torii Hunter on Vladimir Guerrero’s recent hot-streak at the plate. “You see him at the plate now, he’s ready to hit. He’s like Bamm-Bamm on ‘The Flintstones.’”
– It’s pretty interesting that the Angels are in first place in their division and have the 3rd best record in baseball despite having only 1 hitter batting over .300 (Howie Kendrick). Aside from that Casey Kotchman is the closest (.292 avg)
– Being the sports radio junkie that I am, I must have heard 50 times this week on 710 ESPN that the Angels vs. Dodgers Freeway Series “isn’t that big of deal”. Tell that to these guys, these guys, this guy and this man’s privates (viewer discretion advised). Ok, it’s not Yankees vs. Mets or Cubs vs. White Sox, but I dare any fan of baseball to attend this series and not feel like more is on the line than a win or a loss, like perhaps, your own personal safety.