Friday, June 15, 2007 |
Win/Win-ish: Dodgers 2, Angels 1
The Dodgers scarcely fared better; in fact, Santana carried a no-hitter through 4.2 innings, until Matt Kemp's single broke it up, but Santana came right back and got Lowe to fly out to right. Santana's strong performance was probably the best news of the night for the Angels. For one thing, it means he's had good consecutive road games, and for another, it marks his first quality start at Dodger Stadium. His only other start there, May 21, 2006, was another road disaster in which he gave up five runs over four innings. Ironically enough, his opponent was Derek Lowe, who pitched seven innings of a 7-0 shutout, with Jonathan Broxton going the balance of the way.
To me, the turning point of the game was when Santana plunked Jeff Kent with men on first and third and no outs in the sixth. Loading the bases was begging for some runs to score, and score they did with the help of Luis Gonzalez, who came through with an RBI single that plated both Rafael Furcal and Juan Pierre. If he gets Kent — or if the umpire calls Kent back to the plate for failing to even attempt to get out of the way of the pitch — the game is 1-0 on that single, but such are the fortunes of war.
The Angels put up a bit of a fight in the bottom of the ninth when Gary Matthews, Jr. — who had previously struck out three times — reached on an infield single, as did Casey Kotchman. As expected, Garret Anderson tapped weakly to second, and thus ended the game. fangraphs.com blames him for the loss, and while I'm inclined to agree, he's been useful enough that I don't feel entirely like throwing him into the Pacific. After all, Hillenbrand is still on the team; first things first.
Labels: angels, dodgers, recaps
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