Tuesday, July 24, 2007 |
The End Of Bart, Again: A's 12, Angels 6
"It bothered him warming up, but he wanted to pitch. In the first inning, he was just spinning his wheels," Scioscia said. "We're concerned. It's in a different spot than what we were dealing with before. We'll see where we are tomorrow."So the Angels are now hinting Bart might end up on the DL today, though so far there's no sign of that just yet. Colon gave up four runs in the first and just got the bajeezus knocked out of him, and the Angels never really recovered.
The bad pitching from Bart got amplified in subsequent innings, as neither Dustin Moseley nor Chris Bootcheck, the AAAA-wondertwins in the back end of the Angels' bullpen, were up to the task of shutting down an Oakland offense that had hitherto been on a grinding lull. Instead, they gave up a combined eight runs to put the game well out of reach; only Darren Oliver was able to post a scoreless frame. The Angels' pitching depth is mostly illusory, and this game was a good illustration of why.
The lousy pitching masked a pretty good offensive show, but even that had its flaws. In particular, the Angels had the bases loaded with nobody out in the fourth, got two runs on bases-loaded walks by Orlando Cabrera and Gary Matthews, Jr., but couldn't come up with a big clutch hit to save their collective lives. While they did manage to knock out Chad Gaudin that inning, it wasn't quite what you'd hope for, certainly never enough to even tie the game. And while Vlad went 2-for-5, both hits were singles, part of an ugly recent power drought — forget about the home runs, where are the doubles?
But good things happened, too, like Mike Napoli's solo homer, and Reggie Willits' clutch single to retain his grasp of a .300 batting average. Fortunately the M's lost 8-7 to the Rangers in one of those Eric Gagne games that used to drive me crazy when he was with the Dodgers: pulled in to a non-save situation with the score 8-4, he immediately gave up three runs on a single, a double, and a homer by Richie Sexson — and then worked his way through a single, a fielder's choice, and a flyball double play to end the game. The Angels ain't dead, not by a long shot, but they sure don't look good, and they're going to need a bunch of help down the stretch to win this division.
Labels: angels, athletics, injuries, mariners, rangers, recaps
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