By Jeff Flinn - AngelsWin.com Contributor
Thumbs Up:
- Weaver and Santana continue to get it done.
- Weaver has become a legit strikeout artist. And in spite of 15 Ks and 4 BBs, he still almost got through 8 innings. There's no longer concern about his pitch counts.
- The OF defense continues to save runs. Wells made some nice running catches. Bourjos continues to run just about anything down.
- Kendrick has finally learned plate discipline, which will allow him to be a perennial .300 hitter.
- Abreu continues to reach base at an excellent clip, 6 times against Toronto. Now if only a consistent leadoff man could be found, that's a good 1-2-3 at the top of the order.
- Callaspo is even showing some plate discipline. Now that his wrist is healthy, look out!
- Walden only needed to pitch once in the Toronto series, after 5 appearances in the first 6 games. The Halos need to preserve him for the entire season
- Which brings us to maybe the most important breakthrough this past weekend, Rodney's emergence. Where has the 3 innings, 32 pitches, one baserunner pitcher been until this past weekend? This could allow Walden to not be overworked, which is huge.
- Thompson continues to pitch well, when called upon. His performance is one reason why Jepsen could spend some time in SLC for a little while.
- The pen did pitch shutout ball for 9 1/3 innings on Saturday night, and never allowed a run (inherited or otherwise) during the 3 games against Toronto.
Thumbs down:
- More injuries adding to the total team DL stints already, now up to SIX already. This is one of the most frustrating things since 2003, as EVERY year they're in double digits in team DL stints. Other than the A's and Mets, does any MLB team have as many injuries every season?
- Kazmir was sent to the DL, and at this point his rotation spot is on thin ice. When you don't have command and your pitch counts get too high, that is not a good thing. Not to mention a fastball that sits in the high 80's without having a solid off-speed pitch to work with.
- Wells has not been good at the plate, and is now hitting .100. It is true that this is a smaller sample size, but the swing and the results are not pretty at this point.
- To say that the Halos are bad with RISP would be the understatement of the year. Other than having three of those hits early in Saturday night's game, they continue to look ugly in those spots.
- The same has to go for the baserunning as a group. I haven't seen a team have so many bad baserunning goofs since watching games going back to 1966. The expansion Mets could probably identify with some of the antics.
