Thursday, March 31, 2011

Mathis Shines, Bullpen Does the Opposite, Angels Win Anyway


On his 28th Birthday, Jeff Mathis went ahead and hit a home run, throw in a double and an Angels win, and it was a pretty good birthday present.

While the Angels beat the Royals, 4-2, it wasn't an easy one. Jered Weaver looked amazing, giving up zero runs through 6.1 innings, but then the Bullpen decided to make things interesting. The only guy out of the pen who looked in command of his stuff was Jordan Walden. Michael Kohn didn't look bad, but he didn't look that great either. Fernando Rodney put runners on the corners with two outs, then watched Alex Gordon almost take him deep to end the game (if he swung any earlier, it would have been a no-doubter). Thankfully, Gordon struck out a few pitches later and the Angels won.

The offense looked better than I expected, including a DEEP home run by Torii Hunter to get them started. But if the Bullpen is going to play like this all season, we are going to need to get more than 6.1 Innings out of our starters. It was an embarassing display put on by our pen today. I don't know if its Scioscia putting his trust in the wrong guys, or something completely different, but this was bad.

Dan Haren gets a chance to push the Angels to 2-0 tomorrow. Lets hope he can go a little further into the game and with a bigger lead.

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Random Thoughts:
- Billy Butler looks like a chubby Country Music Star
- Vernon Wells had an average first day, had a nice double.
- Mark Trumbo looked rattled at the plate today, but was solid defensively at first.
- Of all the games played today, the only snoozer was Braves/Nationals. It was 2-0 early and you could tell it was already over.
- Can't wait to see the Freaky Franchise dominate the Dodgers tonight.

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