West Coast trip begins: O's at Angels
Game Preview
Orioles (35-43) at LA Angels (42-34)
After an amazing two game stretch that saw the O's come from nine runs down to win one night, then blow a four-run lead in the 9th to lose the next day, the Orioles begin a two-city, West Coast trip tonight.
The Birds play the Angels in Anaheim tonight at 10:05 p.m. to start a four-game series and seven-game road trip that will also take them to Seattle.
Pitching Matchups:
Tonight, 10:05p - Jeremy Guthrie (6-7, 5.11) v. John Lackey (2-3, 5.06)
Fri, 10:05p - David Hernandez (1-2, 4.19) v. Ervin Santana (1-3, 7.47)
Sat, 9:05p - Jason Berken (1-5, 6.44) v. Matt Palmer (7-1, 5.16)
Sun, 3:35p - Rich Hill (3-2, 7.08) vs. Joe Saunders (8-5, 4.24)
Jim Johnson and George Sherrill could not hold a 5-1 lead in the 9th Wednesday afternoon vs. Boston. The Red Sox rallied to tie the game at 5-5 and Boston beat the Birds, 6-5 in 11 innings.
The O's went 3 and 3 on their last road trip and are 11-23 on the road this season. The Orioles went 1-5 on an earlier West Coast trip to Seattle and Oakland.
The Birds are just 5-13 in games vs. the AL West this season.
Over the last 23 games, the Orioles team ERA is 4.21. Over the last 25 games, the bullpen ERA is 3.46.
The Angels just lost the last two games of their series with Texas as the Rangers moved to just a ½ game back of LA for the AL West lead.
Like the Orioles, the Angels suffered a bitter loss on Wednesday. They trailed Texas 7-1, but scored three in the 7th and 9th to tie the game. But then, Hank Blalock hit a walk-off, two-run homer in the last of the 9th to give Texas a 9-7 win.
Before losing the past two days, LA had won six in a row. The Angels are 13-5 over the last 18 games and went 17-9 in June.
They have done so, despite a team ERA of 4.74 that is 12th in the AL and despite the fact that the Angels have put eight pitchers on the DL this year. They have had to use 12 different starting pitchers, the most in baseball.
The Angels have allowed nine runs in two straight games and they have done that 15 times this year - tied with Cleveland for the AL lead.
The Angels team batting of .278 leads the AL and they are 6th in the league in runs scored and 11th in homers.
The Angels, who have had a winning record in 17 of the last 18 months, have 420 wins since the start of the 2005 - that leads all of Major League baseball. LA won the AL West in 2007 and 2008.
Last year, the Angels were 6-3 vs. the Orioles and they won both games vs. the Birds in a two-game series in Baltimore on April 28 and 29. The O's are just 4-15 in their last 19 games at Anaheim, dating to August of 2005. The O's have not won a series at Anaheim since August of 2004.
Tonight, LA opens a ten-game homestand. The Angels are 20-15 at home this season.
O's hitters, 2009 vs. Angels:
Andino: 0-0
Huff: 2-8, RBI
Jones: 4-8, HR, RBI
Markakis: 3-8, RBI
Mora: 3-6, 2 RBI
Pie: 0-3
Reimold: 0-0
Roberts: 2-8
Salazar: 0-0
Scott: 0-5
Wieters: 0-0
Wigginton: 1-8, RBI
Zaun: 0-4
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Categories (click for archive)Orioles News | Steve Melewski |
Pitch around Torii Hunter,this guy always kills us. Figgins has been hot also.The fact that the Angels have had to fight through so many injuries and the shock of Nick Adenhart shows how much difference a team with a winning attitude can overcome.The Hill start coming up will be interesting.Doesn't realy look like anyones realy ready to take is place in any event but the bullpen just can't keep up with all the early exits.Haven't seen much on Patton. I would have thought he'd be ready by now.
Steve, I want to get one last post in concerning your previous entry, "Second guessing the skipper." I think you summed things up nicely. (I can't believe someone bashed you for being "petulant," when all you did was respectfully defend your position to someone taking the other side of the issue. How's that being petulant?)
Like you I greatly respect Dave Trembley. In my mind the pluses he brings to the team outweigh the minuses, yet he plainly made the wrong move in removing Brad Bergesen.
The people defending Trembley's decision aren't thinking this through, just as he didn't think it through. It's like they watched the game, but didn't see the game.
Bergy outpitched Josh Beckett, a pitcher who soon will be named to the AL All-Star team and, should he have a second half of the season on par with the first, he'll be in the running for the Cy Young Award. We're talking about an elite major league hurler.
Now, Brad didn't just outpitch him, but outpitched him by a wide margin. Give this fact, there is just no way he should be deprived of the opportunity to finish what he started. For him to be able to catalog such a win in his memory would be huge for his confidence and a great leap forward in his still budding career.
Still, for Dave to bring in Jim Johnson wasn't per se a bad move, given JJ's ability; it's just that leaving Bergy in was clearly the better one. There's a truism in baseball to which Trembley subscribes and that is that there's only much a manager to do to affect the outcome of a game. He can't turn the double play, come up with a big strikeout or hit a game-winning three-run homer. What he can do and what he's paid to do, is to see that he has the nine players on the field who will give the team the best chance to win.
Last night, to put it simply, Brad Bergesen should have been been one of the nine who Dave Trembley had go out to start the ninth, because Bergy was the pitcher who gave the team the best chance to win.
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Yes, I agree. Plus in watching the game, Bergy seemed in complete control and not tiring at all. I am basing it on how he looked yesterday. Next start, he may have 103 pitches and look tired and be hittable. Yesterday, he was still strong late in the game. That, how he out pitched Beckett, was only at 103 pitches and had a four-run lead, told me he was ready to go out for the ninth.
That doesn't mean leave him in the full inning if he started to get hit. Just start the ninth, I feel he would have finished it. Dave didn't make a bad move, in my opinion he just didn't make the best move for that situation. - Steve
Steve, If I was Dave Trembley in that situation I would have been tickled pink that I had a rookie pitcher who had a chance to pick up his second complete game after only a couple of months in the majors.
I make a distinction between "tired" and "gassed." For me a pitcher can be a little tired and still pitch through it and be effective. The top pitchers do it all of the time. I can't believe that Roy Halliday isn't a bit fatigued as he nears the end of another complete game, but he wills himself through it.
When a pitcher's gassed, he no longer is capable of pitching effectively, even if he tries to pitch through it. He just doesn't have anything left in the tank. Gassed is when he can't find the plate, starts getting his pitches up, continually falls behind in counts and gets hammered.
None of that describes Bergy. He many have been tired, but he wasn't gassed. Had he gone out for the ninth and someone bet that he wouldn't finish the game, I'd have taken the bet in a heartbeat. He was in control.