Well Fought Game 2, But Angels Offense Was Over Matched

In my earlier post “Who Else Wants The Red Sox Eliminated In Three?”, I touched on some really unfavorable loosing “Patterns” the Red Sox had in their many World Series appearances. However, I did not point out one winning “Pattern” the Red Sox have, which a reader by the name of Jim took care of for me with this comment, “The Angels haven’t even won a playoff game against the Sox since 1986″. Now I didn’t verify that date, but all true Angels fans know that we haven’t done well against Boston in the post season. It’s not that I overlooked that fact, more so I wanted to think that this was the Angels team that could finally break that “Pattern”. After all the Angels not only dominated their division during the regular season reaching a franchise high one hundred wins, but they also took care of business against the Red Sox all season. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t given up hope, but as all the announcers and reporters keep kindly reminding us that the 2001 Yankees were the only team to come back after being down 0-2, it isn’t looking pretty. How great would it be though if they could travel to Boston and return the favor by taking two from them in front of their hometown crowd and bring it back for the final show down.

The Angels deserve a lot of credit tonight for staying tough after falling behind by four runs in the top of the first inning. From the start you could tell it was going to be one of those hard fought ball games where you bite, scratch and claw your opponent until someone finally gives up.

On the mound for the Angels was Ervin Santana, who for the most part pitched a pretty solid ball game against a tough Boston Red Sox ball club. Santana struggled in the first inning surrendering four earned runs, three of them on a home run by Jason Bay his second in this series. However, Santana battled back and managed to ultimately pitch five and one third innings only allowing one more run. This was enough to keep the Angels in the game and allow them the chance to come back, and come back they did.

Offensively for the Angels they were getting hits, eleven total. The main problem was the hits were coming tonight from the three, four and five hitters (Teixeira, Guerrero and Hunter). The rest of the team came up empty, with exception to Chone Figgins, tonights hero. The lack of offensive production from the rest of the team was definitely the difference in the ball game as the Angels left a total of eleven runners on base. Twice they had bases loaded with two outs, and an opportunity to change the game but came up empty. Chone Figgins gets a lot of the credit tonight for keeping the Angels in the game. With two outs in the bottom of the fourth he managed to hit a line drive to left and score Juan Rivera from third. His biggest hit a triple to right center came in the eight inning, with the Angels trailing the Sox by only one run 5-4. This set the stage for Teixeira to hit a sacrifice fly, sending Figgins in to score and tie the game at 5-5.

Going into the ninth with K-Rod on the mound, I definitely had a good feeling this would go extra innings or perhaps the Angels would pull out the win in the bottom of the ninth. Sadly that didn’t happen, J.D. Drew who seems to only come up with the big fly’s in big spots did it again with a one out home run to center field putting the Sox up 7-5. That proved to be all the Sox needed to take game two of the series.

Let’s all break out the dusty copy of the movie “Angels in the Outfield”, because at this point some Angels lifting our players up is what we need to bring this one back.