By Jeff Flinn - AngelsWin.com Contributor
Raves:
Weaver battled even though he didn't have great stuff, only having 3 Ks on the night. If not for Cuddyer's bases clearing XBH, it might be a different game.
Shields and Walden held the Twins scoreless. Walden showed some fortitude, pitching out of a 1st and 3rd and no outs without a run scoring, and striking out 2. Nice debut Jordan!Walden hit 99 MPH on the radar gun, with his slowest fastball registering at 97 MPH on the radar gun. His slider was in the 87-89 MPH range.
Matsui has hit in 7 straight and raised his BA 15 pts. in that time.
The baserunning and defense didn't have any bad plays again tonight.
Rants:
This offense is terrible right now with RISP, and also late in games. I can't even remember the last time they came back from behind late, which makes sense given that they have ONE win all season when trailing after 8 innings. It's also a seemingly semi-routine thing for them to be held to 0, 1, or 2 hits the last 3-4 innings. That is ANYTHING but clutch.
No one, and I mean no one, can sustain hitting for even 2 weeks, other than Abreu for the first 2 weeks or so of August.
Mathis was flirting with an .400 OPS since June until yesterday's triple. How can someone this bad at the plate start so many games???? He can't throw the ball that well except behind the runner at 1B, and he doesn't block enough WPs.
I've lost count on how many times a player gets to a 5 games hitting streak, and then goes stone cold right after that. There is no consistency whatsoever at the plate.
This is no contender, that's for sure. Contenders show much more consistent hitting, and actually string winning streaks together. When was the last time this team had more than a 3 game winning streak?
The batters have some soul searching to do in the off-season. They need to suck it up and face RISP situations head on, and realize that they aren't the plague!
And STOP playing small ball when the personnel isn't there for the most part to play it, outside of Aybar and Bourjos. But even Aybar cannot seem to successfully land a sacrifice bunt these days.
Crawford is a MUST signing in the off-season, as is a bullpen leader to replace the much missed Darren Oliver.