Swept Away

I don't have too much to say after getting swept, but a couple of thoughts ran through my head.

• The story's always the same with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange County of California of the United States of America of North America of the Western Hemisphere of the Planet Earth of the Milky Way Galaxy of the Virgo Supercluster of the Universe (or LAAAOCCUSANAWSPEMWGVSU for short). No power to protect Vladimir Guerrero, but a fast, pesky, line-up that grinds out at bats and comes up with timely hits to capitalize on their excellent baserunning. It seems like every year for the past 10 years or so that's been the case, but they get away with it. I mean, when you can say that Vladdy, Tim Salmon, Garrett Anderson, and Troy Glaus have been your teams best offensive players of the past decade, well... They never ever had all of them going at full bore at the same time. Either way, it's been enough.
  

• Meanwhile, while everyone (i.e. Myself) goes on and on over their percieved lack of offensive prowess, they've got one of the best pitching staffs out there. John Lackey is the work-horse Ace, Ervin Santana has continued his maturation, growing into Ace 1A, and Joe Saunders is, uh, Ace 1B. In 50 combined starts they've combined for a 30-10 record with a 3.04 ERA in 343.6 innings of work. Just for you seam heads, that includes a 3.04-to-1 K:BB ratio. Lackey, Santana, and Saunders have posted ERA+'s of 161, 124, and 136 respectively, and have tossed 4 total complete games. If that trio wasn't enough, John Garland is proving to be an excellent free agent pick-up, eating a bunch of innings at a decent clip (4.30 ERA, 98 ERA+), and Jered Weaver, while he hasn't lived up to the hype of his rookie year, has avoid an implosion of Buchholzian proportions.

• Long story short, that isn't a pitching staff I want to see in a 5 OR 7 game playoff series. 3.74 as a starting staff is mildly rediculous, as is the .257 batting-average against.
  

• For a number of years, the one consistent strength the Angels had was their bullpen, but this year it's been slightly-below average. Their ERA is 4.00, and the one true bright spot has been Fransisco Rodriguez, who has 40 saves as of tonight, and is well on pace to break the single-season saves record (Bobby Thigpen holds the record with 57, K-Rod is on pace for 64-ish). Jose Arredondo has been phenominal, but as a rookie with 24.3 innings, he's still a wild-card. Other than that, the supporting cast has been less than spectacular.

• My last note is a sentimental one. Can I get all my homies to pour one out for Vlad Guerreros knees? He's still a semi-fearsome hitter, but he used to be a fantastic defensive player too. I'll still contend that his arm is one of the best in the league, but it doesn't matter so much when he lets everything ball that flies in his direction fall in for a hit. It's probably from going bananas all those years on the old-school turf-on-concrete surface while he played for the late Montreal Expos. His ligaments, cartilege, and other soft tissue must scream everytime he tries to get a jump on the ball. Still, it's sad to see the calcified statue of a man limp around in right field.

As much as I should enjoy this coming trip to Seattle, I can't help but see the Sox dropping 2 of 3 to a horrible Mariners ballclub

-Sox

P.S. I was half-way through watching the ESPYs tonight when I realized I should be live-blogging it. Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying it (especially Justin Timberlake as the host), but I couldn't help but fear it going to extra innings, like my last live-blog did.