By Jeff Flinn - AngelsWin.com Contributor
Thumbs Up:
- Haren, to quote the late Johnny Carson (per the late Jim Healy), was bleeping brilliant on Tuesday night. I love Choo as a player, but hate what he always does to the Halos, especially costing Haren a potential no-hitter.
- Chatwood had a decent first outing, especially for a 21 year-old. He had some struggles, but showed some moxie in getting one of the ultimate Halos nemeses in Choo to GIDP in the 5th inning with the bases loaded.
- The defense continues to be solid. Way better than what we witnessed in 2010.
- The bullpen is also light years ahead of where they were a year ago, with 9 more scoreless innings in the series. Rodney has allowed just two baserunners in the past 4 1/3 innings. Walden has yet to allow a run this season. Thompson continues to be solid, when getting work. Takahashi is slowly coming along, and had a nice 2 innings on Wednesday. Downs finally got in his first work in 2011, and was fine. He allowed an inherited runner to score on Wednesday, only through some luck.
- Abreu continues to reach base at a great clip.
- Hunter, Trumbo and Bourjos all had critical home runs in the series.
- Wells finally broke a dry-spell with a key single in the 12th inning on Wednesday. FINALLY!!!!!!!
- Mathis' sacrifice fly was huge as in that spot, I was thinking he'd strikeout or ground into a double play to end the threat.
Thumbs down:
- The hitting really took a step back against a Cleveland pitching staff that was not very good in 2010, albeit their stats are surprising so far in 2011 and they had a sub 3.50 ERA by the end of the series.
- Halos scored a whopping SIX runs in three games, and although they only stranded 16 runners in three games, they were 0-13 with RISP and only cashed in on Mathis' game winning sac fly.
- Three home runs in the series produced 4 of the 6 total runs scored by the Halos.
- Wednesday was just one bad game at the plate for Bourjos, but striking out 4 times hopefully doesn't send him into a tailspin.
