Wednesday, April 11, 2007 |
Santana Pitches Low And Away: Indians 7, Angels 6
The Indians won their "home" opener thanks to another awful road performance performance from Ervin Santana, who didn't even make it out of the fifth inning. It was a situation made considerably worse by the fact that Hector Carrasco allowed both inherited runners to score, padding Santana's already badly inflated ERA on the young season (he ends the day with a 6.35 ERA). Carrasco even gave up another of his own creation, just to make things more interesting.Ervin Santana career splits (prior to today's game) Split ERA ================== Home 3.07 Away 6.46 Night 4.00 Day 5.20
The Angels actually hit fairly well once they got past C.C. Sabathia, who no doubt remembered his 14-2 drubbing at the hands of the Angels last June. Things looked pretty bleak for the Halos in the fourth, when the best the three through six batters could do was a hard smash that a non-gimpy player would likely have turned into a double. But Vlad, GA, and Q all grounded out or struck out, and so Hillenbrand's lone contribution to the proceedings amounted to nothing.
But the thing I forgot to consider was the Tribe's notoriously bad bullpen; their 2006 was, in large part, unhinged based on their fourth-worst relief staff in the league. Once Sabathia left the bump at the end of the seventh with the score 7-3, the Angels mounted a steady comeback in the eighth, capped by Maicer Izturis' single that plated Casey Kotchman and Howie Kendrick. The Tribe exposed themselves further by putting ol' guts and glory, Mr. Joe Borowski, on the mound.
Now, I've always liked Joe as one of those guys who keeps coming back from injuries that should have probably put his shoulder in traction (if indeed that hasn't already happened) from way back in his Cubs days. Still, knowing Joe, the 36 saves he posted with the Fish last year were chock-full of baserunners, testified to by his 1.38 WHIP. So naturally enough he came close to giving it up. With the tying run at first in the person of Casey Kotchman, the whole Rally Monkey thing actually sorta looked plausible.
And then Mike hadda ruin the whole thing by substituting Erick Aybar. Now, those of us who have been following along at Baseball America know that Aybar has a huge, invisible, glow-in-the-dark label on him that reads, "Not to be used when stealing a base is necessary."
Weaknesses: Aybar doesn't profile as a leadoff man because he doesn't work deep counts or walk very often. He's no power threat, though he can drive balls from gap to gap and should produce 8-10 homers annually. He's careless at times in the field and on the bases. A switch-hitter, he batted just .247 righthanded in Triple-A as he's more comfortable and centers the ball more regularly from the left side.And thus did Mike telegraph his intention of stealing second, and thus did Aybar pick a bad time to run, and thus did the Angels' rally get squelched. Was anyone surprised?
Otherwise, listed attendance was 19,031, shockingly strong for a game in which the locals had no real rooting interest, though the Tribe's recap -- not to mention the actual game audio -- made it sound like the crowd was really into it. Seitz and Josh both attended, and Seitz got pictures, for which, yay.
Labels: angels, indians, recaps
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