Tuesday, September 9, 2008

New York: Still Sucks

Angels 12, Yankees 1

It's surprising how much scoreboard watching a game on a Jetblue flight back to Boston can do for one's psyche. The Angels always seem to wake up to play the Yankees, but nobody more than Torii Hunter, it seems. Torii got tagged out on a (stupid) contact play on a Mike Napoli fielder's choice to third. He sorta ran into Yankees catcher Ivan Rodriguez, but as he started to walk off the field, Pudge knocked him away a little with his elbow. Hunter took exception and took two steps before pushing Rodriguez in the back, and rather hard at that. This led to the benches and bullpen's clearing, but no real punches were thrown. I've made my view on bench-clearing brawls in baseball clear, and this is no exception, but I do appreciate the passion it brings to a team which seems to be simply going through the motions.

Hunter's post game comments indicated that he is against violence, and wanted to make sure "kids watching the game" know that, but that sometimes things happen in the heat of the moment. More encouraging was seeing the speed with which otherwise useless Gary Matthews Junior made his way into the fracas. Note: I would not want to be in a fight with John Lackey on the other team.

Regardless, the Halos got two home runs and 3 RBI from Brandon Wood, an encouraging sign as to his progress with major league pitching. Sean Rodriguez and Vlad also homered, Vlad's two-run shot in the sixth his first 4-bagger since mid-August. Jon Garland somehow escaped a first inning that included three hits and a walk with only one run of damage, his only run of the evening. He pitched 7 innings, making Mike Scioscia's life a little harder. Kevin Jepsen made his major league debut with a perfect eighth, while Freddy Sandoval got his first AB as a Los Angeles Angel, flying out in the 8th for GA.

The Angels have a magic number of 2 as of this morning, and could clinch with a victory over New York and a seemingly likely Ranger loss to Felix Hernandez and the Mariners. Ervin Santana will be on the mound in an attempt to polish his regular season resume for October.


Miscellany:

  • No idea how long it's been like that, but thanks to Rob at 6-4-2 for putting this blog under his list of Angels blogs. For those of you who still haven't read 6-4-2, it's time to start.
  • The Rays are in trouble. I needn't say more.

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