Sunday, June 17, 2007 |
The Beatdown, Or, Loney Hits The Wall: Angels 10, Dodgers 4
The two sides traded zeros in the second, but the Angels delivered a beatdown to lately hittable Randy Wolf in the third, sending nine men to the plate and scoring four times, giving up four straight singles to begin the inning. Thanks to the Angels' propensity for going first to third on singles, the second two were scoring hits, and only Shea Hillenbrand (predictably) reaching on a fielder's choice relieved the metronomic regularity of the Angels' attack.
Howie Kendrick doubled one more home, and Mike Napoli cashed in Hillenbrand from third on a scoring one-out sac fly. Wolf then padded Reggie Willits' walk totals with an intentional pass, and got Kelvim Escobar to ground out to second to end the bleeding. It was Wolf's third straight bad outing since May 22, the last time he pitched seven innings in one game. Wolf took 70 pitches to get through the first three innings, and blamed his problems on a lack of fastball command:
"My fastball was all over the place and I wasn't locating it at all," Wolf said. "When every other pitch pretty much rides off your fastball, it's pretty hard to be effective."Nomar got one of those runs back in the fifth with a clutch two-out single. The Dodgers had opportunities here and there (e.g. Luis Gonzalez's leadoff walk in the sixth that three successive batters failed to convert), but in the main failed to take advantage against an opponent who was striking out batters at opportune moments. Meantime, the Angels continued to add to their lead, with innings big and small. And always, the relentless pressure of tremendous speed on the basepaths, the Angels' perpetual motion machine constantly gearing up....
"You could have put a Little League team up there and they were going to have success the way I was throwing the ball," he said. "They do a good job of capitalizing on mistakes, and I made quite a few in that third inning."
It wasn't not so much stealing bases — although there were a couple of those — as going first-to-third in critical situations. As for the stolen bases, both Gary Matthews, Jr.'s and Howie Kendrick's swiped bags were converted to runs in the seventh. Part of that was because Mike Lieberthal threw offline on the Matthews swipe, causing the ball to run out to centerfield. With noodle-armed Juan Pierre holding down center field, the decision to run was an easy one, despite the ball only squirting away 20-30 feet or so from the second base bag.
Stupid lineup tricks + concrete = injured Loney
The good news for the Dodgers was a 3-for-4, three RBI performance by Nomar, who hasn't posted a multi-hit game since May 25, outside of Rafael Furcal, he was the only Dodger to do so today. But there was a lot of bad news, including Wilson Betemit striking out three times, stranding three baserunners. And aside from Jonathan Broxton, who struck out the side in the ninth, every Dodger pitcher allowed at least one run, a lousy effort for a usually solid bunch.
Finally, the Angels injected a couple players who don't generally get playing time, Nathan Haynes, and new callup Terry Evans. I just didn't understand the logic behind calling up another outfielder, especially when Haynes isn't getting any playing time; Evans proved unequal to the task of hitting Bret Tomko by whiffing on three straight pitches. Evans might be something, but when you have a K:BB ratio in AAA of 60:10, that bespeaks of a poor man's Jack Cust.
Labels: angels, dodgers, recaps
Can't we give this guy a little love? Your entry was pretty negative. 10 of his 13 starts have been quality, 5 of his last 6 have lasted into the 7th or later, and he has 22 Ks in his last two games. "Hardly dominant." Hmm. Cf resident blogger: "not yet Shakespeare".
Last year Escobar made 30 starts. In 2004 he made 33. In 2006, 43 AL starting pitchers gave up more home runs than him. In 2004, 36 AL starting pitchers gave up more home runs than him. In both seasons, he was a fair bit better than average, and there were a lot of REALLY good pitchers with worse numbers in that category (Johann Santana, for example).
You have a strange definition of "problem".
I'm aware that Kelvim gave up a enough number of longballs in 2006 to result in a HR/9 of 0.81, as if that were a mark to be ashamed of. But it's also not 2006, and career stats are not an effective piece of misdirection, unless you still think GA can hit .296 with a .469 SLG.
Kelvim's HR/9 over his four seasons with Angels is 0.82, not only well under league averages, but plenty good. There's nothing in those numbers that suggest that Kelvim was expected to give up a solo HR to Furcal, who had hit none this season, and you know it.
Potshots? Pfffhttt.
Which might be apt if Escobar had ever given up anything close in this decade, let alone while with the Angels. The most Kelvim's given up in a season on this club is 21 (over 208 innings).
What Andrew said. You need to make sure you're reading the right column in the stat sheet.
Most importantly, i'm just glad they didn't call up Murphy (again).
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