Got Wood?

Angels 8, Seattle 0

Finally, a fun game to watch. Howie Kendrick went 3-5 with a homer, Juan Rivera went deep, Brandon Wood started (!), and Halo hurlers looks magnificent on the mound. Wood went 1-4, but should have been 3-4 with three doubles. His first double was stolen away by a great play by Beltre at third. His second double was hit even harder, again snared by Beltre, but Wood reached on an awful throw to first. his third double was a clean hit, but nailed the umpire behind Beltre and held him to a single. It's really hard to complain about someone going 1-4 when they go 3-4 with three doubles with a league-average third baseman and a mobile umpire.

Weaver looked good, great at times, and managed to cruise through 7 shutout innings on just 95 pitches. My biggest concern with Weaver has been his lack of an out pitch, leading to long innings and limiting his ability to throw more than 6 innings. Today, though, his changeup was an out pitch, and he recorded 5 K's to only two walks. Shields pitched a solid eighth, throwing 11 pitches to record three outs, the last two on a brilliant 3-6-1 double play. I didn't catch the ninth, but Fuentes struck out the side around a hit and a walk. I can live with that.

Things the Angels can do to keep me interested and claw back to .500:

• Win three games in a row.
• Keep playing Brandon Wood.
• Get good performances out of the most important bullpen pieces: Speier, Arredondo, Shields, and Fuentes.
• Stop dropping pop flies in the outfield. Torii, the ball is your responsibility.
  

Chicago Bulls 121, Boston Celtics 118 (2OT)

A fun game to watch. Ben Gordon hit an incredible three over Paul Pierce to send the game to 2OT, but the game never should have made it to overtime. Word of advice to teams playing the Celtics: Ray Allen is the ONLY player you have to guard with less than a minute remaining. Chicago's inability to play perimeter defense will screw them, as it already has, either again in this series or in the next round. Guard Allen. Guard him. Zone defense is for pasties.


NCAA Women's Tennis

Big congratulations to Amanda, who finishes up her senior year of Pac-10 play by leading the Trojans to their first Pac-10 women's tennis title in 17 years, then following up the team effort with a pair of individual Pac-10 titles for singles and doubles. This sweep was the first by a single player since 1917. Wow.

You'll see Amanda again in the NCAA's in a week or so, and then again on the pro circuit.

Cheering for both teams

Olympic Basketball

I woke up early (well, early by collegiate standards) this morning to watch the United States Olympic men's basketball team take on Yao Ming and China. The game started with one of the more resonant shots of the last few years, a Yao three pointer which opened scoring and gave China their only lead of the game. The place went nuts, but basketball in China is unique. The fans would cheer for Chinese scores but also cheer for Kobe dunks and LeBron alley-oops. I have to imagine it was a very special game for both teams, with Yao doing some impressive cheerleading as the clock wound down to zero.

The US won 101-70, but honestly, you have to feel good about international basketball after a game like that. Hopefully, China will leave Yao alone and let him become the superstar he can be. Also on display during the game: now-Laker Sun Yue. He looked good, although without figuring out his number until the third quarter, I probably missed a lot of his play.

The team plays Angola on the 12th, I believe.


Series Recap: Angels 3, Yankees 0

Another sweep of another overrated AL East opponent. And my, oh my, did we get some offense this weekend. Without delving too deeply into details, particularly at 12:40 AM, the Angels outscored the Yankees 25-12 over the three game series, with 8 of those runs coming in the eighth inning of Saturday's game. Somehow, the Angels broke a 3-3 tie with 8(!) runs in the bottom half of the inning, with the RBI-fest starting with Vlad's homer and ending with his single to left. Yes, Vlad went 2 for 2 in the inning, finishing 2-5 overall in a game where every Angels starter had a hit. It was a remarkable game.

The Halos managed to pull off the sweep today thanks to Joe Girardi's inexplicable choice to bring in Mariano Rivera in a non-save situation. Without the S statistic in play, Mo's been downright mortal, giving up 7 ER in 21 innings, as opposed to 1 ER in 29 innings with the save on the line. It's weird, but it's something to look at. He probably got screwed by an exceedingly lazy play by Cano, who looked like he had a real chance at Chone Figgins' game winning RBI single to right in the bottom of the ninth. Erick Aybar, though, didn't seem to mind as he flung his bat into the air as Howie scored the winning run. It was pretty funny to watch.

Jose Arredondo did his best recreation of a Frankie inning, allowing Alex Rodriguez to double with one out in the eighth. Thanks to a great throw by Mike Napoli and bad positioning by the third base ump, A-Rod was called out at third attempting to steal, although replays showed he was safe by a couple inches. Jose got out of the inning, and such is baseball. Regardless, the strike zone was a fluid concept this afternoon, reminding me again why umpires need to be replaced with pitch tracking systems as soon as possible. I swear, Derek Jeter gets a strikezone the size of a shoebox. It's ridiculous.

This sweep logged a couple milestones for the Halos, one of which demands reflection back to 2002, the last time the Angels were 30+ games over .500. 2002 was a good year for the franchise.


Miscellany

• Amanda's in another tournament, this time the Western and Southern Financial Group Women's Open. Unlike her other tournaments thus far, this is a WTA event, so it's worth $175,000 in prize money. She plays #31 world ranked Katarina Srebotnik tomorrow.
• The Rays won their 71st game this season, breaking their former franchise season win total with 45 games remaining. Bravo, Tampa Bay.
• Olympic sports that are not sports: badminton, beach volleyball, diving, "equestrian," gymnastics, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, and weightlifting. Not sports. Sorry. I'm not trivializing the athletes, just the dumb games they play.
• A small part of me feels bad for sweeping the Yankees and making life easier for Boston, but then I remember: I hate the Yankees also.
• Kira sent me an interesting link about why I should've chosen athletic training over mechanical engineering. Even so, fuck ESPN.
  
• Firefox 3 is a worthless piece of shit. I'm going to downgrade to a functional browser in the next couple hours. Whoever is responsibly for the asinine URL bar needs to be fired and/or shipped to Apple.
  

Updates!

All right, so with my Fluids test moved to next week, here's some tasty Angels baseball for your low-baseball diet.

Series Recap: Angels 2, Baltimore 1

This was a good series for the Angels, outside the third game where they failed to get any offense going against crappy pitching. Without getting into game recaps, the offense is beginning to pick up just as the starting pitching begins its predictable slump. There was no way every starter was going to put up a quality start every time out, but now that's becoming less of a requirement. Juan Rivera has finally taken over the outfield/DH spot he earned in 2006, and the Halos are getting solid production from Torii, Vlad, and Kotchman once again. Even when John Lackey somehow gives up 6 runs in 5 innings, the Angels score 14 runs to get him an undeserved win against Cleveland.

With that much said, I still feel bad for Gary Matthews Junior. Look, the contract was a terrible idea, his production outside early 2007 has been questionable at best, and his current knee injury isn't helping things at all. But regardless, I still like the guy, and I'm sure he's a good person who did seem legitimately thrilled to sign with the Angels. This is a player who has been through 6 different clubs before making it to Anaheim, and he finally found job security. Or at least thought he did. He takes a lot of flak for being crappy, and he should, but let's not forget that he's still an asset. As a late inning defensive replacement or pinch switch-hitter, he's still a valuable, if insanely overpriced, commodity.

Game Recap: Angels 7, Boston 5

For the first time since my regular Boston-hating began, this was an Angels/Red Sox game I didn't care about. The Angels have already taken the season series from the Sox, I had the opportunity to go to a game at Fenway which they won, and at this point, they're 11.5 games up on Oakland in the division and don't need to play .600 ball through the end of the season.

That said, this was still fun. Wicked fun.

Jered Weaver had a good on the mound, going 5.2 and giving up 3 runs. No, that's not a quality start, but it's not a 9.00 ERA either, and Jered really needed to get something working after his injury-shortened start last week. He threw strikes, for the most part, and really only got yanked with 2 outs in the sixth because he had just given up a ground rule double to Jed "Better than Lugo" Lowrie. Jose Arredondo walked Jason "No Longer Good" Varitek before striking out Jacoby "Overrated and Regressing HARD" Ellsbury on a nasty slider in the dirt.

Arredondo, Shields, and K-Rod combined to throw the last 3.1 innings of the game, giving up a collective 2 ER, not bad against the prolific Boston lineup. Yet the complaining about the offense continues in Boston. These are the same people who whine about a suicide squeeze when a team is up by 4. Memo to Boston fans: Your team plays in a little league park. You can never have too many runs. I'm sorry your manager doesn't believe in scoring runs without hitting the ball over the fence, but please stop whining.

The real story of the night was the massacre that was the top half of the sixth. The Halos sent Chone Figgins up first, and he would make the last out after 8 other batters had gone to the plate. Two runs scored on a Casey Kotchman career-high 12th homer, Torii Hunter added a three-run bomb onto Landsdowne Street, and Jeff Mathis pulled of a superb suicide squeeze for the sixth run in the inning. Memo to Mike Scioscia...this is how you win in the playoffs:

- C. Kotchman homered to deep right, C. Figgins scored

- T. Hunter homered to deep left center, M. Izturis and V. Guerrero scored

- J. Mathis sacrificed to catcher, H. Kendrick scored, J. Rivera to second

That's such an awesome combination of Angels baseball and decidedly not-Angels baseball.

Anyways, Frankie's gonna need to learn to pitch to Manny "Whining, Again" Ramirez before the playoffs roll around, should the Sox make the playoffs. He surrendered a homer to Ramirez with two outs in the ninth before getting Lowell to fly out to "deep" left. That's 44 effing saves. It's impressive.


Brett Favre

Sorry to bring this up, but I had to say something eventually.

Brett,

Stay retired. Please. Going out on (or close to) top is infinitely better than returning from "retirement" and sucking with a new team. I promise. I lose respect for you every day this nonsense continues. Don't blame the Packers. You're the one who had the press conference. Let your body have a few years where it's not getting hammered by 300 lb. men and enjoy the jersey retirement. You're a legend. Don't fuck it up.

Love,
Marcus


Lakers

Sasha Vujacic signed with the Lakers for 3 years at $5 million per. Hate to say I told you so. I'm glad he'll be back, but I'll miss Ronny.


Miscellany

• Amanda's playing tennis again, this time a $10k in Missouri [pdf]. Good luck!
• Kira caught a typo in a previous entry, so I guess she gets a mention also.
  
• I don't know why I remembered this just now, but bacon is delicious.
• If anybody has a definitive answer as to the relevance of the Bernoulli equation in a realistic modeling scenario, I'd be thrilled to hear it. Modeling perfectly smooth venturis seems like a real waste of time.
• Anyone wanna get me a present?
  

Reggie!

Angels 4, A's 3

Sometimes the "aggressive baserunning" mantra which the Angels instill in their players at every level of the organization is maddening. So many times, I've watched ill-advised hit and runs turn into strike 'em out-throw 'em out double plays, watched Vlad get thrown out easily at third trying to stretch a double, watched Figgins head home on the ridiculous contact play and get caught in a rundown with less than 2 out.

Sometimes there are days like today.

First, the pitching. Justin Dichscherer is an above average reliever who's having an insane amount of luck this year in the starting rotation. Dustin Moseley, starting today in place of now-father Joe Saunders (congrats, Joe!), is a AAAA pitcher who leans more towards the minors than the majors. My comment after the Angels were easily dispatched in the first:

"A 10 pitch inning. Shocking."

My comment after Moseley gave up two runs in the bottom of the first of what was sure to be a slaughter:

"Losing by two in the first inning with Moseley pitching? Shocking."

Then, Dustin turned around and shocked everyone by retiring 14 of the next 15 batters. Meanwhile, the Angel lineup was formidable as always, scraping out a single run on a Kendrick groundout in the fourth. Scioscia inexplicably pulled Moseley with one out in the sixth and brought in Darren Oliver to face lefty Jack Cust. Memo to Mike: Oliver is not a LOOGY. His BAA is 200 points lower vs. righties than lefties. Stop bringing him in to face lefties. Cust, predictably, knocked a homer deep to center for a 3-1 A's lead.

Casey Kotchman, who earlier in the HH game thread I had remarked upon as being "bad lately," crushed a Duchscherer pitch to right to bring the score to 3-2 with 2 outs in the eighth. After a GA single, Bob Geren brought in Brad Ziegler to pitch to Vlad. 1 pitch, 1 strike, 1 out, and the Angels looked done.

Then Huston Street entered in the top of the ninth. He gave up a crappy infield single to Torii Hunter and a full count single to center from the prodigious Juan Rivera, with Torii reaching third on the play. Street then proceeded to get owned by the brilliance of Mike Scioscia.

Sosh replaced Juan with Reggie Willits at first. Howie Kendrick hit a sac fly to even the score at 3-3, but Reggie had to stay put at first. In extremely NL-esque style, Budde bunted Willits over to second for the second out of the inning. This is where it gets weird. Erick Aybar bounces a groundball off the plate towards short. Meanwhile, Reggie breaks for third. It's a close play at first, but Erick is safe and Reggie is...rounding third and heading for home?! A's first baseman Daric Barton, not known for his fantastic defense, double clutches the throw home, giving Reggie enough time to slide in safely as the ball rolls away from A's catcher Kurt Suzuki. The Angels take a 4-3 lead.

...what?!

Anyways, bottom of the ninth, K-Rod's up to his usual shenanigans, loading the bases with 1 out before striking out two batters to earn his 38th (!) save and get the Angels their 57th win before the break, a franchise record and a winning percentage that puts them atop MLB.

As far as the aggressive baserunning leading to the win, I think a number of factors came into play:

1. Scioscia pinch runs Reggie for Rivera.
2. Scioscia has Ryan Budde sac bunt with 1 out to advance Reggie to second.
3. Erick Aybar is fast enough to beat the throw for an infield single.
4. Reggie/Dino Ebel decide to test Barton.
5. Kurt Suzuki is looking down the line instead of at first base where the ball is in Barton's hands.
6. Barton double clutches because Suzuki isn't paying attention.
7. Reggie is fast enough to go second--> home on an infield single.

Just bravo, Mike. That was the coolest way to get a game winning RBI I've ever seen. The other players were also clearly thrilled, coming out of the dugout to greet Willits as he walked from home plate.


Tennis

Amanda, unfortunately, lost 6-2, 6-0 in the Mecco Cup finals today. That said, she lost to an extremely good player and gave an excellent speech, so I'm certainly not going to complain. Thanks to the NCAA, which clearly doesn't actually give a shit about student athletes, she doesn't get to keep her prize money, but her expenses do get paid off. Memo to the USTA: She deserves to get into the US Open.

She's yet to face her most formidable opponents.

Pink Hats

Wanna feel better about yourself? This guy, and the pink hatter, and the tool sitting next to her, are losing to the Tampa Bay Rays. Granted, the Rays have lost 6 straight, but they'll figure it out soon enough.

Angels 4, A's 1

Ervin Santana. 7 innings. 10 strikeouts. No runs. Just 5 hits and 2 walks. Dominance.

This was a good rebound from his last start, which was terrible, and the one before, also bad. Dana Eveland was, as expected, underwhelming, giving up 2 runs, 5 hits, and 5 walks to a notoriously free-swinging Angels offense. That offense was driven with RBI's from Vlad, Juan Rivera, and Howie Kendrick, with another run scoring on a first-inning wild pitch. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Dana Eveland and "league average" are four words that belong together.

Gary Matthews Jr. was in the lineup to make a statement, and proudly proclaimed "I suck!" by going 0-4 with a pair of strikeouts and 3 LOB. The other overpaid Angels center fielder went 1-4 with a walk, but he really needs a game or two off. Good thing the All Star break is one game away.

I still say the Angels win the World Series if they sign Barry Bonds. Just do it.


Miscellaenous

• Amanda plays 27 year old Venezuelan Milagros Sequera tomorrow for the Mecco Cup. She's been ranked as high as 29, but currently sits at 159.
• Billy Beane is an idiot. Look, I know hes made some incredible personnel acquisitions, but I don't see how anyone can consider the Harden rade a good deal for the A's. Harden started for the Cubs today and pitched 5.1 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts. The Cubs would piss away a seven run lead but eventually win in the 11th.
• The Lakers need to sign Ronny Turiaf, who just recieved an offer sheet from Golden State, just so we can listen to his cheereading on those "Wired" segments.
  

Gamma H

Somewhere between studying for a Tuesday Fluid Mechanics test and a Monday Marketing "test," there's some interesting things going on in the sporting world.

Tennis

Amanda, still good at tennis. She won her match today 6-4, 6-3, so she advances to the finals of the Mecco Cup in Allentown "Funland," PA, tomorrow at 11:00. The local rag, the Morning Call, has some pretty humorous coverage of yesterday's match vs. Brenda Schultz-McCarthy. Schultz-McCarthy was, at one point, the #9 ranked female singles player in the world, and currently holds the women's world record for fastest serve at 130 mph. She's 37, but that serve is still there, so bravo, Amanda.

Today, she defeated Lauren Albanese, generally described as a "young 'un." I'll let you know who she plays tomorrow once I find out.


Angels/A's Belated Series Preview

Probably should have written this before the series actually, you know, started, but it is what it is. The A's just traded away a dominant Rich Harden and, for some reason, a worthwhile Chad Gaudin to the Cubs for a couple no-name prospects. One of those no-name prospects, Sean Gallagher, mowed through the Angels last night in a 9-2 A's win. The key to beating the Angels is using pitchers who aren't good, but rather haven't ever pitched before. I've grown weary of this.

Tonight, Ervin Santana and Dana Eveland face off. Santana's had a couple rough starts, but he's like 8-1 with some sort of ridiculous ERA vs. the A's in his career. Eveland, on the other hand, isn't actually as good as he's been pitching. He's a league average pitcher. Just wait. Enjoy the regression to the mean at 10:05 EST tonight.

The last game before the All Star break comes on Sunday with Hokie Joe Saunders and Justin "medicore relief pitcher turned ace" Duchscherer. And yes, I spelled his name correctly without looking it up. Joe had a good game, but not good enough to get the W, last time out with his first career complete game. "Duke," as Oakland fans call him, has an artificially low BABIP of .227, particularly when his K/9 is a pedestrian 5.8. He, too, is due for some regression, but probably not in this start.

The A's will probably take two of three and keep the series interesting until their young pitchers break down in August.

Texas != Contender

Angels 11, Rangers 10 (11 innings)

Look, I don't mean to be an asshole, but all these idiots seem to think that the Rangers are, somehow, in a pennant race. So does this moron, and this one. But that doesn't change the fact that the only good pitching they've gotten has been from AAA no-names who the league's never seen before. Sure, they came back from a 10-4 deficit, but that's just as much Scioscia's fault as it was the fruit of the Rangers hitting coach, so all the nonsense seems like a bad joke.

As far as the actual game, John Lackey had nothing and got hit hard all night. He couldn't throw his breaking ball for strikes, although the strike zone was about the size of a shoebox last night. The Rangers managed to make a 6-run comeback before Scioscia finally realized it was time to put in Arredondo, who mowed them down for a pair of innings. Justin Speier was, for the first time in recent memory, inspiring, and put the Rangers down in the 10th, and Frankie close out the 11th for his 36th (!) save before the break.

Maicer drove in the 11th run for the Halos with a bloop single that scored Garret Anderson, but the offense was driven by Howie Kendrick, who had his first multihomer game (coincidentally his first homers of the season). He went 3-5 with 3 RBI and a walk, so bravo to Howie, who's going to be an Angel for a long, long time.

But seriously, Ranger fans: your team is not contending. They will not be contending this season. At the very best, you are the 2007 Mariners.


Tennis

Amanda is good at tennis. She plays in a couple hours for a spot in the semis, and moves closer to a potential wildcard in the US Open. First, of course, she'll have to pair with Steph for a rematch with Jordan and I.


Northeastern Hockey

Mostly old news here, but Steve Qualier was one of several NU recruits to get drafted in this year's NHL Entry Draft. Also drafted were the Daniels brothers, although they likely won't be on Huntington Ave. until 2010. Quailer was taken in the third round, 86th overall, by Montreal. Félicitations, Steve.

Game, Set, Match

Angels 5, Oakland 3

I saw this one from the fifth onward. Ervin Santana was, as usual, nasty. Honestly, this kid's going to be a #1 starter sooner than later, and if John Lackey weren't so ridiculously good, you could argue that he already is. He fanned 7 in 7 innings, keeping the Angels staff K/9 at a respectable level.

Scot "Only One T" Shields got two quick outs before surrendering a solo homer to Mark "Might as well be a lawn gnome" Ellis, but somehow, the Angels scored three in the bottom of the frame to get the game to Frankie, who struck out Daric Barton on three absolutely filthy changeups to get the first out of his 33rd save.

Memo to Garret Anderson: You might be old, but every time you turn on an Embree fastball, we all remember how awesome you used to be. Keep this up and we might just back into the World Series.

Memo to Mike Scioscia: Batting Kotchman in the 2 spot was brilliant (and long overdue). Although he really belongs at 3, his leadoff ground-rule double in the 8th was the start of the rally that led to the unlikely Angels win. Casey is a spectacular player, and considering his family ties to the organization, is going to be worth some serious money in contract negotiations. Pay the kid.

Memo to Bob Geren: Look, I know I shouldn't be giving you advice, but everyone at AN knows it, everyone on the Angels know it, and I know it too - Alan Embree is not a legitimate MLB player anymore.


Tennis

I'm completely and utterly biased here, but watching Amanda play in the USTA 50k Pro Circuit Torunament in Dorchester has been a lot more entertaining than you'd expect. She played with a junior player in doubles in a match I got to watch today, and aside from the nonsense lightning warnings, it was a ridiculously dramatic match. She and her partner managed to overcome a 4-0 game deficit in the second set to force a 10 point tiebreaker (I love tiebreakers, by the way. They're pure tennis.), which they eventually won 14-12.

I'd say it was inspiring, but my own complete lack of ability in anything resembling a sport just depresses me. With the possible exception of goalkeeping in broomball. Either way, I've been playing lots of tennis lately.