Post date: Jun 6, 2011 5:17:58 AM
The Angels continued their winning ways against the New York Yankees beating them on Friday three runs to two. Jared Weaver had a stellar performance, and the Yankees can't seem to find a way to beat the Angels. The Angels are the only team in Major League Baseball to hold an all-time winning record against the Yankees, and for some reason the Angels always seem to do well against them. I sincerely hope that we continue to do so, however, the Angels should not define their season on whether or not they were able to beat what some people refer to as "the evil empire." Saturday night the Angels were edged three runs to two on, Sunday they were beaten five runs to three.
Although the Angels have a stellar rotation with pitchers like Jared Weaver, Dan Haren, Joel Piñeiro, among others is currently in the top four rotations in baseball when it comes to team earned run average, I'm a little concerned about various aspects of the offense such as taken advantage of game situations which are in the Halos' favor more specifically their inability to score runs when given the opportunity. In Friday night's game alone they left 15 men on base. That just will not get the job done. Base running mistakes are creating unnecessary outs. Another key aspect is situational hitting. The Angels seem to have forgotten what that is, a good example of this would be the last few at-bats of Torii Hunter over the last couple of games. I'm not trying to criticize him in fact he is one of my favorite players of all time. However his batting technique definitely needs some tweaking; he needs to shorten his swing a little bit and put the ball into play and trust his teammates to bring him in. Instead, over the last few games he has tried to put the Angels ahead by attempting to hit the ball using a Home Run swing, opposing pitchers now adapt to this swing of his and are now by starting to throw unhittable balls.
I just wanted to highlight as what I as an Angels' fan can be corrected rather quickly, in order to keep us from falling further behind the Texas Rangers in the American League West. When the series started with the New York Yankees, the Angels were only 1 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers we have now fallen to 4 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers. I would definitely consider this a mini free fall, but it is one that can be stopped relatively easily.
In my 29 years as an Angels' fan, this year I attended my first Boston Red Sox game, and my first New York Yankees game ever. I have already described the Boston experience in an earlier entry, now it's the Yankees turn.
Unlike the Red Sox series, the Yankees series felt like a true home game which is the way it should feel when you're home. I didn't feel outnumbered this time. It was more like both teams were evenly represented and equally as loud. But just as I mentioned in the Red Sox series, I can't help but wonder who truly has a connection to the New York area. I met Derek, who actually is from the Bronx and cheers for his team with a passion. He is a transplanted Yankee fan, who works in Southern California. He was a very nice man and I must say that I had a lot of fun meeting him.
Overall, I must say the Yankees' game made me yearn for the start of the second half of Inter-League Play, especially when the Angels play against the cross town Los Angeles Dodgers. I definitely plan to go to a Angels-Yankees series again very soon.
This was definitely a tough series against the New York Yankees especially since the Cleveland Indians were unable to keep the Texas Rangers from exploding and opening a wider lead in the division. Where were the impressive, unstoppable, Indians this past series with the Rangers?
That's the beauty of baseball, the Angels will have to take the attitude of an old adage, "if you want something done, you have to do it yourself." Go Angels!