Game 1: KCR 4, LAA 2 | Game 2: KCR 6, LAA 4 | Game 3: KCR 9, LAA 2
The Kansas City Royals came into town this weekend and looked every bit the defending American League champions. They dazzled with their defense. They were aggressive and confident at the plate. Their pitching looked as strong as ever. Their two biggest off season additions, Kendrys Morales and Alex Rios look like they are going to be significant upgrades over Billy Butler and Nori Aoki. Even the guys on the bottom of their roster, guys like late-inning blow-out relief pitcher Chris Young and second string-outfielder Reynaldo Nehemiah Paulo Orlando, look like winners.
At this point in the season, the Angels are not that team. They were one step behind the Royals all the way in the first two games and then got blown out in the third, but the season is young. Weaver will find his release point. Cron will start to feel comfortable in the box. Et cetera, and so on. It will be interesting to see if the Angels will be that championship caliber team the next time the two clubs meet up again on August 13th, 107 games from now.
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Game One: One Step Behind
The Angels never had the lead in this game, though they were always within striking distance. Eric Hosmer had an RBI single in the first, which was answered back by a Kole Calhoun RBI double in the third. But then Lorenzo Cain knocked an RBI single in the fifth, and our old friend, Kendrys Morales, sporting a Robinson Canó beard, hit a solo home run in the sixth to give the Royals a 3-1 lead. The Angels got within one again after David Freese hit a homer in the bottom of the sixth. In the ninth, Lorenzo Cain walked with the bases loaded to score one more for the Royals that wasn’t necessary at all, not when you have a Wade Davis to come in and strike out the side in the ninth.
Hector Santiago had the best outing of the three Halo starting pitchers of this series, giving up just three earned runs in 5.1 innings. Hector’s command would fade in and fade out. He struck out four and walked only one, but he mixed in quite a few missed targets in there, sending Chris Iannetta’s glove arm lunging outside the strike zone to prevent a pitch from flying towards the fans behind home plate.
Vinnie Pestano took over for Santiago in the sixth and impressed. He had much better command of his pitches and his ball had a lot of horizontal and vertical action on them. He gave up just one hit and no walks in 1.2 innings.
On the defensive side of things, Angel pitchers threw two wild pick offs to first base that allowed the Royal runners to advance. I guess the squad needs more reps with this play to develop that old muscle memory.
David Freese on the other hand, looked terrific on defense. He made two terrific charging, barehanded throws to first base in this game, and handled several hot smashes hit near him all series long. Yes, there was the ball that went under his glove in the Wilson game in the second inning that allowed Rios to score, but if you saw the slow motion replay, you saw that the ball Omar Infante hit bounced on the lip of the infield grass which made the ball skip under Freese’s glove.
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Game Two: Spitting on the Curveball
Jered Weaver took the hill before his adoring fans on Saturday night and struck out four of the first six batters he faced. This is where I would normally call my father-in-law and tell him to turn to the Angel game because he might see something special, but it’s just as well that I couldn’t because Weaver was only able to hold on for one more inning. It all came undone in the fourth when he gave up five runs to the batters in blue.
Royals hitters consistently let Weaver’s 68 mph curveball drop into Drew Butera’s glove for a strike; he could have those. What they wanted, what they waited for, were his 85 mph fastballs, and they feasted. There was a Moustakas home run, a Cain single, a Hosmer walk, a Morales double, a Rios single, a Perez home run, and an Infante single before it was all over. Manager Mike Scioscia let Weaver stay out there to twist in the wind, wither on the vine, and take his lumps, and by the time it was over, the Royals had a 5-1 lead. With the way Jeremy Guthrie was pitching, it felt like the game was already in Kansas City’s hands.
After Morales pinned one more run onto Weaver’s ERA with an RBI single in the fifth inning, the Angels showed they had a little comeback moxie stirring in them. Calhoun hit a two-run double in the bottom of the fifth to close the lead to 6-4, but there was to be no more scoring from either team for the rest of the game.
David Freese made another fine defensive play in the fifth inning on an odd 2-6-2-5 pinball tag out of Eric Hosmer at third. While the ball was being thrown back and forth across the diamond after a steal attempt at second, Drew Butera threw over to Freese who placed his foot right in front of the bag, blocking Hosmer’s hand as he slid and allowing enough time for the tag to be applied.
In the Angels’ half of the fifth, Scioscia called for a hit and run with right-handed hitting Johnny Giavotella at the plate, and when the Royals’ second baseman ran to cover second base, Giavotella hit a textbook opposite field ground ball through the hole in between first and second, proving that major league hitters can indeed hit the ball to the opposite field if they ever wanted to start beating those shifts.
• Can we Angel fans stop chanting MVP every time Mike Trout comes up to bat with a runner on base? My teenage daughter already dislikes Trout because she thinks he has a big ego — “He struts whenever he walks, and when he is just standing around, he looks like he’s trying to pose for an Ambercrombie & Fitch photo shoot.” The camera phone strobe lights are fine though — the twinkling stands as night falls makes the stadium look like a baseball fairy tale.
• A rare Ryan Madson sighting was had as he was warming up in the Royals’ bullpen late in the game for an appearance that was never made.
• In the seventh inning, trailing by two runs, Scioscia made an odd pinch-hitting decision. The Angels desperately needed a runner on base, preferrably someone with speed who could maybe steal second or take the extra base when the next Angel batter got a hit, and Collin Cowgill seemed like the obvious choice, but instead, Scioscia called on Chris Iannetta to pinch hit for Butera. The struggling Iannetta already had nine strikeouts on the season, and he was 0-for-8 against Jeremy Guthrie in his career. He fouled out to Hosmer and is now 0-for-9 against Guthrie.
• The best part of this game, for me, was when Drew Rucinski got called in to replace Weaver in the fifth inning. He made his season debut and pitched two beautiful innings of two-strikeout, no-walk, no-run baseball against the second-best offense in the league right now. I can’t wait for Tuesday when he’s scheduled to make the first start of his major league career.
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Game Three: Tossed Out of the Ring
If the Angels got clotheslined in the first game of this series and suffered a Royal elbow drop in the second, then game three was when the Royals picked the limp Angels team up over its head, spun it around a couple of times and threw it out of the ring. Sure, Albert Pujols hit that first inning home run to climb up even higher into the far reaches of the all-time home run list, but the way Yordano Ventura was spotting his 98 mph fastballs and dropping his curveballs in for strikes, the Halos were doomed, especially with C.J. Wilson elevating his fastballs to the delight of the Royal bats.
The game was 7-2 Royals in the sixth and was basically over when things got oddly heated. Mike Trout popped up from his slide at home plate after an RBI double by Albert Pujols only to get into it with Yordano Ventura, who was backing up the throw to home. Earlier that inning Ventura threw a fastball that was a little too high and tight to Trout. The wunderkind responded by hitting a bullet back up the middle just a couple feet above Ventura’s head. Yordano glared at Trout as he ran to first base, as if he was angry that Trout had tried to hit him on purpose. After Trout scored, the two players mad-dogged each other for a few seconds before the hulking Salvador Perez picked up the twiggy Ventura and pushed him out of harm’s way, all the way back to the pitcher’s mound. Albert Pujols, like a father trying to protect his child from danger, sprinted from second base and was the next Angel to reach Ventura, who Perez already had well under control. So although the benches cleared, including a ridiculous outpouring from both bullpens, no punches were thrown. There wasn’t even any pushing, shoving, or yelling to really speak of.
When play resumed, Matt Joyce hit a grounder to deep first base, but Ventura didn’t cover first base, preferring to clutch his calf on the pitcher’s mound and presumably claim he had a cramp. Although when he left the field, his gait looked perfectly fine.
One good take away from this game, for me, was C.J. Cron’s impressive final at-bat against Ventura. After a scorching spring training, Cron is hitless so far this season. In his first at bat, Ventura mixed in a couple of wicked curveballs with his pinpoint heat and got Cron to strikeout swinging. In Cron’s next at bat, Ventura threw him another beautiful curveball, but C.J. smacked it back up the middle for a solid hit, except that Lorenzo Cain made an impossible play on the ball to rob Cron.
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One More Thing
After six games, the Angels are one of only two teams in the American League not to have a stolen base. This is a team with Mike Trout, Erick Aybar, Collin Cowgill, and Johnny Giavotella, and they don’t have one stinking stolen base yet. Andrew Romine, the former Angel infielder who is now a back up for Detroit, has two stolen bases already! When the Angels traded Howie Kendrick for Andrew Heaney, part of the deal should have been that the Angels got to have Davey Lopes for spring training so he could teach the Angel speedsters how to steal bases because there is much more to being a successful base-stealer than just having wheels.
But now that Jerry Dipoto blew that opportunity, maybe he can make amends for that by reaching out to Chone Figgins, who averaged 44 stolen bases a season from 2004 to 2009 while he was a member of the Angels. Maybe if Chone is busy, the Angels could even get Rickey Henderson to come help coach base-stealing. He was an Angel at one point, and he and Don Baylor were teammates on the 1985 Yankees. It is clear that the Halos need someone to come help already.