Friday, May 12, 2006 |
A Romp For The Ages: Angels 12, Mariners 7
It wasn't only the veterans who were swinging the bat well, though. Dallas McPherson, whose hitting has been notable mostly for its absence, went 2-4 with a lone strikeout; he seemed to have some difficulty on bad throws, including one by Hector Carrasco that could only be characterized as well offline. Tonight was an unfortunate test of his ability to pick balls out of the dirt and five feet up the first base line, and while he didn't look terrible doing it, neither was he especially fluid, either. I do recall thinking that one or two of those throws Erstad would have caught for sure. But he also had a couple pieces of daring and praiseworthy baserunning of the sort that the Angels stress: with the bases loaded, Chone Figgins fouled out to left. In Raul Ibañez' haste to field the ball, he didn't check to see if any of the runners had tagged. D-Mac had indeed done so, and the throw to the plate was wildly offline, and so McPherson scored easily. Similarly, on a huge pop fly in the bottom of the sixth, he continued running to second. Adrian Beltre missed the ball in the lights — so we assume, anyway — and Dallas lit at second, safe. While he didn't score, his efforts in both cases were both smart and fundamentally sound.
As well, Mike Napoli, he of the Three True Outcomesness, bagged an RBI single of the bareliest variety, a squirter that went in and out of the glove of Adrian Beltre, who not only gave that up but also the two-base error to Dallas McPherson. Beltre, whose errors seemed a piece of a very shaky Mariners defense, made up for it with the kind of offense I remember him for when he wore a Dodgers uniform: the meaningless solo homer in the late innings of a huge rout. It was only his second home run all year.
As for Angels pitching, well, Kelvim Escobar looked all but uniformly rattled all night. Every time I looked up, it seemed he had two on and nobody out, giving up the Earl Weaverian three-run homer that put the M's back in the game to .208-hitting Jeremy Reed. In fact, Escobar only had one 1-2-3 inning the whole night; I have to wonder how badly the White Sox would have crushed him had he actually been on the mound in Chicago. Call it a bullet dodged.
At last, Hector Carrasco. He was polite, giving Beltre a parting gift in the form of a solo home run, but otherwise Carrasco failed to strike out the M's save for once. I'm beginning to think he's becoming this year's Ben Weber, the guy you call in when you need a double-play ball. So long as he makes his outs, that's fine; with a 6.11 K/9, he's far from the danger zone. Still, I just can't bring myself to trust pitch-to-contact guys. And Hector looks like he might be on his way to becoming one.
He got a single on a 1-2 pitch - a curveball that hung up just a little. I was surprised to see him make contact, to be honest.
Napoli just missed another "true outcome," with a fly ball to the wall in right-center that would have been about six rows back in a day game (or even a night game in July or August).
I suspected that Escobar's finger was giving him problems. Although he didn't walk anyone, he seemed to be struggling with his control inasmuch as far too many pitches were getting far too much of the plate.
And how great is Tim Salmon? He's my favorite Angel...position player, anyways...and the only guy on the team whose coming-to-bat song I know.
Napoli thew out a would-be base stealer.
This game also featured the return of former Angels prospect Jake Woods, who tossed a scoreless 8th with two Ks.
: 5/13/2006 01:24:00 AMI'd be sticking to this lineup for awhile. Legitimate power potential 3-8, and a downtown walker in the center with Salmon. I'd swap in Quinlan against lefties, and use Murphy as the PR defensive replacement as the night gets late.
One thing that's well worth mentioning is that Napoli is 3-3 in throwing out the thieves, and as that is really the only celebrity aspect of Molina's game, I don't see what the point is in making him an item. And talking footspeed, Nap isn't too bad for a catcher...he's got a few triples himself and nabbed 12 bags at Arkansas. This is a solid package.
: 5/13/2006 08:38:00 AMWith that, I'll turn the pedantry dial back down to 2 and say: Go Halos!
: 5/13/2006 09:00:00 AM
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