Thursday, August 04, 2005 |
Blowback: Orioles 4, Angels 1
That same year, the Astros took a 1-3 series loss against the cardiac-powered Dodgers, who grand-slammed their way past the Astros. Houston then fell to .500 at 44-44, thereupon firing Jimy Williams, and bringing up Phil Garner. A month later, they would go on a tear that brought them to the playoffs via the Wild Card.
So we don't know what fuels teams to do certain things, but I can say I have seen situations when radical changes lead to wins, and this seems to have been one of them, what with the Orioles canning Lee Mazilli before the game. Not that this was the Orioles winning necessarily, though their pitching qualified as superior for once, surrendering only four hits to the Angels' five.
The hitting for the Angels was therefore weak throughout, and the future becomes cloudier with an unexpected hip injury to Erstad. From the game recap,
Erstad's injury does not appear to be serious and the first baseman is listed as day-to-day, but it was bad enough for him to opt out midway through a game, which goes against his very grain.That news makes me feel a lot better about Erstad; it certainly lends plausibility to the reports that he's been beaten up lately, and hence the necessity of calling up Kotchman, a very good idea. I don't think Kotchman's quite ready yet, even without seeing his AB's; as Stephen Smith would say, he's about 300 AB's or so shy of major league ready."I twisted my left ankle when I stepped on the mound and it got jammed pretty good," Erstad said of the play in the second inning when he ran across the diamond and stumbled slightly over the mound before catching the popup by Javy Lopez on the third-base side. "The ball was in no-man's land. I've got the biggest glove, so I figured I was the guy to catch it."
Erstad said the hip began to spasm and made it difficult to play in the field. In the third, he made an error when he tried to backhand a ground ball by Jay Gibbons, a play he said he flat-out missed and should have made.
And if we can blame injury for Erstad's error, the non-error caused by Cabrera losing a ball in the mid-day sun is also forgiveable, as much as it pains me to say so. Plating two runners is hard to accept, but every single screwup he makes out there makes me more and more skeptical about him in the lineup, the weekend's good series or no. Sean's right: Cabrera's not getting hot because he's in the two spot, he's hot right now.
Is it just me, or does Anderson's .289/.317/.444 start to look pretty lame, RBIs or no?
Finally: the Angels just won a series. It's been so long, I almost forgot. Maybe it's time to review Sean's post after the Angels started choking last year about this time.
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