6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: The 17.01 Million Dollar Man: Mariners 10, Angels 8

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Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The 17.01 Million Dollar Man: Mariners 10, Angels 8

In the fourth inning, was that a low and away slurve Beltre swung at before strike three? Umpire Larry Vanover ruled it a foul, which brought out a fuming Mike Scioscia from the dugout. They argued for a bit, and then John Lackey, who had the worst outing he's had in two years, did something extraordinary: he struck out Beltre on a fastball over the inside part of the plate.

It shows two things: first, that even absent a working breaking pitch of any kind -- he wasn't really able to spot it during the course of the game -- he was still able to fool Beltre with a breaking pitch. And Beltre, who was never able to lay off those pitches when he was a Dodger -- save in 2004 -- has once again become susceptible to them. But besides that moment of brilliance, Lackey reminded me of some pretty awful outings he had early last year; it's the kind of arm mutilation I haven't seen since the Friday the 13th movies, which I cannot say I have seen but seems appropriate.

A game highlighted by weak defense -- four errors in one game as I write this -- bad pitching, and stupid in-game maneuvering made for some pretty lousy baseball. The worst part that I remember was Yan intentionally walking Raul Ibañez to get to -- Richie Sexson? What kind of braindamage is that? It yielded a three-run shot to the Mariners. Maybe the best part was the incredible ninth inning rally that should have been the game-winner, with Timmy's solo homer as the cap. Had Yan actually made his outs instead of making home runs, the Angels could have won it. As Richard used to say, back when he was actually blogging about baseball, we shall not speak of this again.

ESPN Box • Recap

// posted by Rob @ 10:12 PM link // 0 comments