Sunday, July 29, 2007 |
Sweep: Angels 13, Tigers 4
Dustin Moseley cruised through his first couple innings, but started leaking runs in the third and fourth. In the fifth, he immediately got into trouble by giving up back-to-back singles to utilityman Ryan Raburn and 3B Brandon Inge. Previous to this year, Raburn hadn't done much against major league pitching, but he's had some impressive outings in the minors, hitting 17-20 homers a year at AAA mostly at second base, and so far his season in the majors, he had been hitting .370. Moseley got Curtis Granderson to pop out to short, but not before surrendering his second wild pitch of the game, moving Raburn and Inge to second and third. Moseley looked like he might get out of the jam after he struck out Mike Hessman, but it looked like he wanted no part of Gary Sheffield, walking him in front of Craig Monroe. At that point, with his pitch count at 87, Mike Scioscia gave him the yank, and in came Chris Bootcheck — who promptly surrendered a two-run base knock to .218-hitting Craig Monroe. He got Omar Infante to line out to Maicer Izturis at second for the final out of the frame, but it was a lot of huffing and puffing from beginning to end, a good bit of it unnecessary.
Offensively, it was almost all Angels the whole night long, though Vlad's weird slump seems to have no end; his only RBI came on a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch in the third that seemed, from our vantage in the cheap seats, to get him square in the shoulder. That resulted in a warning to both benches, a dumb way to manage the problem of hit batters, but it yet remains. Chone Figgins went 3-for-5 with a rare RBI at the top of the order, and scored three runs. One of the more hopeful signs was Casey Kotchman's 2-for-4 night; he seems to be swinging the bat much better lately, and both of his hits came against lefties. Even Jeff Mathis partook, going 2-for-3, and bringing his average up to a respectable .250.
One piece of trivia mentioned by the broadcast booth that I didn't read about in the AP recap was that this represented only the second time in Angels history that the team has swept an opponent and scored ten runs or more while doing so. I haven't been able to ascertain that this is true so far, but it certainly sounds plausible.
Brandon Wood got a late defensive callup in tonight's game, and was optioned to Salt Lake thereafter. Matt Brown from AAA Salt Lake will take his place on the roster.
Next up: Seattle. Play well, boys.
Update 7/30: I went back to the Retrosheet database, and it turns out that prior to this series, the Angels have never swept a team in a three game series and won all three contests by 10 runs or more. On the flip side of the coin, the Tigers have been swept by an opponent scoring 10 or more runs four times in their history:
- August 23-25, 1951, vs the Washington Senators (10-0, 10-7, 11-5).
- July 22-24, 1958, vs. the New York Yankees (13-3, 16-4, 10-7)
- April 21-23, 1959, vs. the Cleveland Indians (14-1, 10-1, 10-4)
- May 17-19, 1996, vs. the Chicago White Sox (11-6 (10 innings!), 16-4, 14-3)
Labels: angels, recaps, tigers
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