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Saturday, July 04, 2009 |
The Baltimore Bullpen Blowup: Angels 11, Orioles 4
There's a bunch to write about here, and for once, the danger is that I'll forget some of it; usually it comes to me about 24 hours after, but this was actually a pretty entertaining game (something I've said twice today). Howie Kendrick made a semi-competent comeback, the Angels stomped on a bad team (though one wonders what the O's would do transmigrated into the AL West), and truth and justice prevailed again, tra la.
Some random observations:
- Howie Kendrick looked, by turns, revived, then bad and bad. His first out was a hard line drive. His second and third were strikeouts, the last one on three straight pitches, as if he knew his fate has come back to bite him, even though he was facing 3.75 ERA (coming in to the game) Brian Bass. I want to be optimistic, and there's enough hope in the first two at bats to counteract the last two. The rest is up to him.
- Vlad murdered a Bass offering over both bullpens. Nice, but there is still almost no reason to think he should be batting fourth. Except for today's homer, he singled but bounced into a double play, struck out, and grounded to short. If it weren't for Brian Bass, he could still be a real goat in this game.
- The pixy dust is rubbing off Sean O'Sullivan a bit. Not a great outing for him, who was one out and one run away from a quality start, but the offense got him off the hook.
- The bullpen continues to do good work lately. No runs by anybody, and really no serious threats, respectively, under the watches of Bulger, Oliver, and Jepsen. Bulger, especially, is a bit of a blessing, and Jepsen, who gave up a leadoff walk in the ninth to Luke Scott, promptly got a 6-4-3 double play to erase him off the bat of Ty Wigginton. Sweet.
- The O's defense didn't help them much tonight. There were two errors, the first in the bottom of the fifth that allowed a bases-loaded, nobody-out situation, when Brian Roberts misplayed a ball and failed to touch second. The second was in the eighth, when Bass's throw took Robert Andino off the bag; both ended with runs scoring.
Labels: angels, orioles, recaps
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