By Glen McKee, Sr. AngelsWin.com Staff Writer -
Once again it was a week of extremes. It started extremely bad but finished extremely exciting and good. There was a little bit of everything last week so let’s get right into it.
The bad. The series against the Cardinals is the obvious the “villain of the week.”
- Losing three in a row against a team that had been, prior to facing the Angels, mediocre.
- Scoring three runs in the first two games while the Cardinals scored 13
- Giving up 25 runs to the Cardinals in three games. Neither the starters nor the bullpen could do anything worthwhile.
- And finally, losing the last game by two runs after battling back and forth, and having the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth and having already scored three runs. So close to success, and yet again failure. To quote Ben Grimm (The Thing) from the old Fantastic Four comics, “how humiliatin’.”
- The starting pitching against the Cardinals and the first game against the Mariners. Just terrible.
But then…
The good. Yes, there was indeed some good!
- New pitching acquisition Jhoulys Chacin. File photo (damn, he’s hot):
Jewels Chacin pitched seven innings and gave up two runs before the bullpen shit the bed on his performance.
- Old pitcher Hector Santiago: Hector went eight shutout innings, outpitching Mariners ace Felix Hernandez, he of the lousy hair.
- The Angels in later innings: The team put up three runs in the ninth against the Cardinals closer, 16 runs combined in innings 7-9 in the three games against the Mariners. That’s outstanding, and a reason to keep watching the game.
- Albert Pujols, sorta: He had a huge home run on Saturday when everybody, even Pujols’s wife, mother and kids, thought he was gonna choke.
The rest. After starting last week with a day off, the Angels won’t see another day of rest until May 26. That’s 16 games in a row. Also, whomever it was that filled in for Terry Smith on the radio this weekend did a good job. Note: five seconds of research said it was Steve Klauke, voice of the Bees. I like Terry Smith and I think he does a good job, but I really enjoyed Klauke and he seemed to work well with Langston. Watch your back, Terry!
What’s next. Two at the Dodgers, two at home against the Dodgers, and three at home against the Orioles. Tough week, and we start it with Shoemaker and Weaver pitching.
My predictions versus last week. Last week I predicted 2-4 total, 1-2 versus both the Cardinals and Mariners. The Angels went 3-3, 0-3 versus the Cardinals and 3-0 versus the Mariners. Cumulative totals: 16-15 predicted versus 14-17 actual.
My predictions for this week. 0-2 versus the Dodgers at the Latrine, 2-0 versus them at home, and 1-2 versus the Orioles for a 3-4 week. Post your predictions below and let’s all have a laugh at how we did after this week.
