It appears that my timing is horrible.  I have been out of town on a school retreat/camp and missed all the fireworks between the Halos and Rangers!  Wow.

I don’t quite know what to say, but I certainly understand the need to protect your hitters when people are throwing beanballs. 

Vicente Padilla has to have better control– hitting two Angels hitters and nearly hitting a third is not accidental.

Lets just hope that the suspensions aren’t too deep.  We’ll need these guys in the stretch if we’re going to contend.

Phew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, the Halos dodged a major barrage with Giambi’s snafu in the bottom of the 2nd. The Yanks started off solidly with a ground rule double by Jason Giambi, A-Rod grounds out, then Lackey walks Robinson Cano. So, with one out Jorge Posada nails a shot to Center Fiels and Giambi (in a crazy moment) fancied himself a Chone Figgins and bypassed the obvious stop sign by the 3rd base coach to get tagged out easily at home. Lackey struck out Wilson to end the inning.

Umpf– that’s us slumping to the ground after being hit by the Yanks.  They pounded us.  Glad that one ended.

The Angels are taking on the New York Yankees to finish out their 4 game series (in just a few minutes). The Halos are hitting and playing well right now.
The Yanks are sending Randy Johnson to the mound with his 5.03 ERA and unpredictable performance issues. The once formidable Johnson can be mind-blowingly good or incredibly bad. Which Johnson will show up? The Angels are hitting and mistakes by a pitcher will certainly be capitalized upon if the Halos play as they have of late.

The Angels have the solid, strong John Lackey on the mound tonight. He has a 3.33 ERA and has won 10 games with 8 losses this season. He went 14-5 last season so he’s on pace to push past that.

Go Halos!!

The boys are playing well these days. Woo hoo! Jered Weaver got his 8th win which is just phenomenal for a rookie, I believe Fernando Valenzuela was the last rookie to accomplish this feat!
I listened on XM radio and it really sounds like some of our guys really had some great defensive plays and were doing plenty of hitting.

Very timely and I am certainly hoping that they can continue this action for the rest of this series and the upcoming Texas series.

Go Halos!

Angels are bringing their hot bats to Angel stadium to face the Chicago White Sox in a make up game later today. Look for the Angels to heat it up again– they’re hot.

Loved the ejection of Texas’ pitcher, Eaton, early in the game yesterday. He was tossed after throwing behind Juan Rivera immediately following Garret Anderson’s 3 run shot. Glad to see the quick action by the umpire.

The boys hit fabulously — great to see it. Good time to be hitting. I am hoping for good things in August. Scoscia will keep working his magic by rotating the talent to give guys a rest to keep ‘em fresh.

Go Halos!

There were a couple of great articles today in the Orange County Register! Check it out at OCRegister.com. Great column about a different type of “little ball.” This time the author is referring to the fact that the Angels infield is filled with little men with big hearts!
More coming out about the World Baseball Classic and Colon’s season ending injury. The Angels organization won’t say it, but I will Colon should not have pitched in the emotion laden Classic. He probably pitched when he should have there and did more damage. If they’re going to have the classic it should not coincide with the season opening of MLB. Why not schedule it for after our fall classic. That way injuries in the WBC would heal in time for MLB season in the spring. Just my humble opinion. I’m sure others feel that way, I’ve talked about this early in the season.

More later. I’m looking forward to listening to the game while I attend my daughter cheer camp performance. Look for Joe Saunders to come out strong with good bats behind him to heat up the cool afternoon air. Yep, it’s cooled off in So. Cal (thankfully) but you’ll get no whining from this So Cal gal. I hate the heat- it makes me cranky.

Go Halos kick some Rangers butt!

Not one to toot my horn too often, but I was selected the Blogger of the Week by MLB.com and appeared on Friday’s show with Pete. If you get a chance, check out MLB.com’s archives and take a moment and listen to my interview. We discussed the Angels (of course), the loss of Bartolo Colon, and why I am with a tiger in my profile picture… Great show– all about baseball and a good interview. I bashed the overpaid babies in New York, the A’s rivalry, and discussed the Dodgers as well. Check it out!

Well, I just returned home from today’s game! The Angels spanked the Texas Rangers to halt their string of losses. They had lost 5 of 7 games in the last week and really didn’t look like the team that went 19-6 in July.
Today, they were hitting and fielding well. The Angels had hits in the double digits – always a good sign, and only one error. The Angels finished with 10 runs, 13 hits, and 8 left on base. Of course, we would love for them to leave fewer on base, but we’re just glad that they are hitting. The 10 runs give fans another reason to be happy– free hot wings at ******’s! Woo hoo.

Juan Rivera continues to hit the ball well and hard. He hit his 19th home run of the season and drove in 4 runs.

I was also glad to see Tim Salmon crush one early in the game and Garret Anderson was able to drive in 3 runs to help the Angels win and pull back ahead of the Rangers for second place in the Western Division of the American League.

Ervin Santana had to be happy with the run support. He pitched well to earn his 12th win of the season ( a career high for him). He struck out 5, gave up 2 earned runs, walked two– a very solid outing. The Angels have to be happy with that following the news that Bartolo Colon will likely be out for the rest of the season with a partial thick tear of his right rotator cuff. The Halos will need the pitchers to really step up and be solid without the Cy Young winning workhorse who led them last year.
The Rangers foolishly decided to walk Vlad Guerrero in all but one at-bat. This gave Rivera a chance to shine. He’s really having a great season; it is exciting to see a guy have a “breakout” year.

Texas’ starter, Koronko, was knocked out in the 4th after giving up 7 runs.

On a side note, the kids were running the game today and boy were they cute. Kids were announcing the game, operating cameras, and just being so darn cute. This one little girl was wearing her Chone Figgins shirt (down to her ankles) and skipping along singing “Let’s go Angels!!!” over and over again. Absolutely darling! You can tell she’s been raised by Angel fans!!!

Good game shaping up. Boys have tied it up 1-1 after 4 innings of play.
Oakland’s Loaiza is looking a lot better this outing than the least time we saw him. I think he gave up like 4 home runs last time.

We’ll see what happens today. Escobar is looking sharp, but two errors by the Angels doesn’t bode well, they need to play solid baseball to win.

Going to the beach– more later.

I love the Angels’ aggressive style! I missed the game tonight due to a previous commitment but would have loved to have seen the boys score on infield singles from 2nd base– not once but twice! Wow. I just love the way they go after it!!!
The Angels lead the league in stolen bases (again) and will continue to do so for as long as Scoiscia is the manager of the team. This aggressive style brings such excitement for fans and players alike. Opposing teams can only shake their head in disbelief– few teams take the chances on the basepaths as the Angels. But that is what makes them special!

Young Joe Saunders from TripleA Salt Lake contributed mightily. The leftie threw a good game allowing just 2 runs in 7 innings pitched. He has a 2-0 record and 1.93 ERA. He’s doing a great job filling in for the often-injured Bartolo Colon.

Juan Rivera made a great play with a one hopper to prevent Mark Kotsay from scoring on a Frank Thomas hit in the 6th. Rivera, playing left field tonight, made a fine toss to Napoli who blocked the plate like a veteran to prevent the run.

Overall, a great game and a true representation of what the Angels are all about. I am looking forward to tomorrow night’s game– might have to run over to the stadium to see if tickets are available. Probably not, but worth a try.