Sunday, June 14, 2009 |
Games, Games, Games
The Good Old Days, And Torii's Hat Trick: Angels 9, Padres 1
Remember when the Angels used to get an early lead and then the game was over because the pitching was so good? Yeah, seems about a million years ago to me, too. It'd be great to have the boys always play the NL West, against whom they're now 4-1; the novelty of interleague play wears off fairly soon, and it eventually becomes just win-whoring.No matter, though; the Angels took this one from the first and ran with it, handing the Padres a hiding one or two runs at a time, and scoring in every frame but the fourth. Torii Hunter hit three solo homers, the first time in his career he's done that, and the first Angel to do it since 2003. (Seeing how 2003 was such a crummy year for the team, it makes some sense that something like this would happen again. Right?) Tony Gwynn, Jr. came close to robbing Hunter of his second dinger in the fifth:
"When he jumped, my heart dropped because I thought he caught it," said Hunter, who is known for his leaping catches at the wall. "But like I told someone in the dugout, only me can rob me."God, I love Torii. Love, love, love Torii.
I shouldn't finish this off without mentioning how Joe Saunders came within two outs of a complete game; struggling a bit in the ninth, Kevin Kouzmanoff — who drove in the Padres' only run on a solo blast in the sixth — reached on a wild pitch strikeout, and Edgar Gonzalez reached on a Bobby Abreu fielding error. After getting Brian Giles to pop out harmlessly to shallow center, that brought out Mike with the hook. Kevin Jepsen pulled a 4-6-3 double play out of his hat and that was that.
More games like this one, boys, please?
And a nice footnote: S-Rod came on and got a pinch-hit single in his first at-bat of the year.
Power Outage? What Power Outage? Dodgers 3, Rangers 1
Interrupted by a power outage at the stadium — a bank of lights went out after the fifth and had to be repaired before the game could continue — the Dodgers went on to pound Texas pitching for three runs to make up for being stymied by Scott Feldman. Both starters were chased from the game (Randy Wolf and Feldman both left after the delay).Andruw Jones, still being paid by the Dodgers, homered against his old team, a solo shot off Cory Wade in the sixth. It seems now like reports of his resurrection with Texas have been somewhat overstated; he's hitting .100/.136/.250 in June, and .245/.339/.434 in May, quite a few steps down from his hot April start of .344/.523/.781. I'm not in the least concerned.
And what a show Broxton put on to end the game, striking out Chris Davis to end the game with a flourish. He's been amazing this year.
Rockies Win 10 Straight: Rockies 5, Mariners 3
I haven't given Colorado much thought this year, mainly because I figured that, post-2007, their subsequent regression to suck was just par for the course. However, oddly enough, subsequent to their May 29 firing of Clint Hurdle, the Rockies are 11-4, including a four-game road sweep of the Cardinals, and a three-game road sweep of the Brewers. The Rocks are 3.5 games back of the Cards in the Wild Card standings; if they can continue to play anywhere near this well, they might have a shot at the postseason again.Labels: angels, dodgers, mariners, padres, rangers, recaps, rockies
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