It’s hard to complain about how the Angels are playing these days. They’ve won three straight, seven out of ten and they’re 12-4 in the month of June. They’ve gotten their shutouts (like Jered Weaver on Saturday) and they’ve even gotten the bats going with back to back ten run games. The end result is, they have a nice six game cushion despite the Athletics getting hot and on any given day, either their hitters or their pitchers can get it done and win them a game. Not a lot of teams (maybe the Red Sox) can proclaim that kind of balance.
What a game by Chone Figgins. He became only the second Angels hitter (Garrett Anderson in 1996) to rack up six hits in a single game and he was a key part of the Angels come from behind win over the Astros. He also saw his season batting jump by almost thirty points after just that single game and it’d be nice to see Figgins build on this and become the run scorer we all know he can be.
Vlad Guerrero had tapered off a bit in June which makes this recent run all the better. Imagine what the Angels will do when he starts raking again. Anyway, he’s hit only one homer in June and his OPS is a pedestrian .734. He’s still been awesome at home though (1.137 OPS versus .857 on the road).
John Lackey has had a tough time in two of his last three starts and you hope that’s not a trend. Still, he leads the league with ten wins although his strikeouts are down a bit at 75 in 97 1/3 innings. So it looks like once again, it looks like he’ll fall short of 200 strikeouts. Still, his 2.96 ERA and 1.22 WHIP would be career highs because he’s kept his walk rate down so much.
Jered Weaver had his best start on Saturday since his April 28 start against the White Sox but he’s still been pretty erratic despite winning five straight. He’s only pitched six innings once in his last five starts and that’s not really encouraging either since it forces the Angels to go to their pen earlier then they might otherwise.
That’s about it. I know it’s been a while but I’m catching up on a few personal things which are winding down. Game two against the Astros is tonight and it’ll be Bartolo Colon going up against Jason Jennings.
