Being the avid MLB fan that I am, I spent my blistering hot Sunday afternoon tuned into a show aptly named “The Baseball Show” on ESPN radio. You’d think the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” could spend just a little bit more time coming up with a creative name for their only show dedicated to all things baseball, but they didn’t. I guess if “Baseball Tonight” is so successful on TV then “The Baseball Show” must be good enough for radio.
Anyways, The Baseball Show is hosted by Steve “The GM” Phillips, the former New York Mets GM and one of the top baseball analysts around. The co-host of the show is some guy named Ryen “I spell first name wrong” Russillo. Phillips is an intelligent, articulate and insightful baseball analyst and I learn something about the game every time I listen to him. Today Phillips dropped an A-bomb of knowledge on me that no other team in the history of Major League Baseball has started a season without two 18+ game winners from the season before.
Well, congratulations Angels. You’re history! Wait, I think that came out wrong. You see the Angels are anything but history. This week they were able to take two of three from last year’s AL Central Division Champion Indians and avoided the sweep by those pesky, pale, computer geeks from the Northwest all without their two best starting pitchers. As a result the Angels share the AL West lead with the Oakland Athletics while traveling to Texas for a 2-game stint against the Rangers starting Monday.
– The Angels rotation was supposed to be the true strength of the team in 2008, but with injuries to John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar the Halos were expected to struggle early on. Needless to say that hasn’t been the case as Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana and Dustin Moseley have picked up the slack. Saunders won his second game of the season on Sunday and has a 1.27 ERA through his first three starts. Despite solid performances each and every time Saunders was called up from the minors, he has been somewhat an afterthought the last few years for a rotation spot. This season he appears to have solidified himself in the rotation moving forward, despite if Lackey or Escobar return.
– John Lackey is a magician. Not quite as good as the Twins Michael Cuddyer, but a magician none the less. Here he is performing his famous floating hat trick.
– Angels’ catcher Jeff Mathis was supposed to be the guy two years back when the Angels let fan favorite Bengie Molina go to free-agency. At that time Mathis showed his youth and inexperience at the plate and was surpassed on the depth chart by Mike Napoli. Now, at 25, Mathis is starting to show some serious major league potential gathering 3 more hits on Sunday including his 2nd homer of the season.
– If you want to know what it feels like to hit a 600 ft home run then take a look at this. I think Hafner was even surprised how far that ball went.
– K-Rod’s back. Well, kind of. Rather, Francisco Rodriguez was back on the mound Sunday while once again only topping out in the low-90’s with his fastball. He did give up a meaningless run off two singles and a catcher’s indifference, but I was impressed that he recorded three ground ball outs given his propensity to get hitters to pop the ball up.
– Howie Kendrick is hitting .500 on the season. Yes, that’s correct. He also managed to come up lame after hitting his 2nd double of the game on Sunday. Is it just me, or is Howie Kendrick the Rich Harden of hitters?
– Last week’s Bold Prediction failed to come true as Torii Hunter did not homer again after hitting two against Cleveland on Monday (I predicted he’d hit 3 homers last week). That’s why I call it a Bold Prediction, so lay off with your torment about my failed prognostication.
BOLD PREDICTION OF THE WEEK – I think Ervin Santana ends the week with a 3-0 record. He is expected to start Monday against the Rangers and should pitch again on Saturday at home against the Mariners. Santana has always had his struggles on the road (Career Road ERA – 7.03) compared to pitching at home (Career Home ERA – 3.14), but Ervin is showing signs that he is maturing as a person and on the mound and he’ll take a big step forward this week by dominating the Rangers in Texas.