6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: The Razor's Edge: Angels 4, Mariners 1

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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Razor's Edge: Angels 4, Mariners 1

Several things of interest in this game:

Ervin Santana's strong rebound from his rough first inning. Ervin Santana walks into a baseball stadium, walked the bases loaded... and then he gets a double play on a rocket to Howie Kendrick to end the inning. Santana just wasn't compelling in the first, but once that got settled, he pretty much dominated the Mariners. He faced the minimum in three of the remaining six innings of the game, and allowed only two singles and a reach on an Orlando Cabrera error.
Now, bench him on his next road start, please? I mean, one home loss and the long knives come out.
Shea Hillenbrand's unexpected homer. Sure, it was to the cheap part of the yard, just right of the left field foul pole, but raise your hand if you want to give it back. I didn't think so.
The end of Mike Napoli's hitting streak.
Another multi-hit game for Reggie Willits, about whom I've had a little nail-biting lately.
Q goes 2-for-4 with an RBI against a lefty. It should be noted that this year he was hitting lefties worse than righties (.244/.261/.489 vs. .300/.417/.300), the reverse of his usual pattern. Of course, one of those was a gift when Ichiro lost his routine fly in the lights.
Scot Shields was better than we've seen him lately, pitching a 1-2-3 eighth. It was his second consecutive appearance in which he faced the minimum, the 11th time this year he's done that out of 24 games. Good show!
Casey Kotchman's retrieval of Vlad's errant throw in the ninth. Vlad Guerrero fielded Richie Sexson's liner to right, and then in a fit of braggadocio, he tried to double up Raul Ibanez. Only, his throw was about 20 feet offline, and Kotchman had to run over and pick it off. Good thing, because if that hadn't happened, the ensuing game-ending double play might have been a scoring groundout instead.