6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Saunders' Win Number One: Angels 7, Indians 5

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Saunders' Win Number One: Angels 7, Indians 5

Joe Saunders, who looks startlingly like a younger version of one of my uncles, finally got his first victory of his young major league career, and unlike Moseley's win last night, he did so pretty convincingly. Sure, he gave up four walks and four hits, but he also only gave up a couple of runs through seven innings, and even then, only one of those was earned, for a nifty 1.29 ERA.

So let's call him depth, if you want, or a trade chip if you must; I could easily see Escobar or Colón getting moved for good value at the end of the year. Now, I don't think it happens, to be honest, but the world is full of surprises.

Heroes of the night include Juan Rivera, for his two homers; Chone Figgins, for getting on base successfully three tries out of four; and Howie Kendrick, who drove in a pair on an RBI single and made Mike Scioscia's job harder when Dallas McPherson comes back. The evening's goats: well, the non-Shields bullpen, generally. Kevin Gregg looked as good as we've seen him lately through two batters — and then collapsed, giving up four consecutive singles. Even K-Rod gave up an RBI hit to the opposition, making the whole affair far scarier than it should have had any right to be. Joe Saunders, glowering in the dugout, grimaced as it looked like the Angels bullpen would make a repeat of August 16, 2005, when K-Rod collapsed partly thanks to overuse in July. Well, that got nipped, and phew.

So this winning thing is getting kind of comfortable. The Angels' longest win streak is an 11-game sequence starting on June 16, 1964; their current streak is eight games long. Thanks to a 5-4 Oakland victory, the Angels remain a half game back of the A's.

For now.

ESPN Box • Recap

// posted by Rob @ 11:38 PM link // 1 comments