Los Angeles Angels Blog Of Anaheim

What a rollercoaster last night’s game was. After stumbling out of the gates and watching Boston take the lead, you could feel the twisting in the pit of your stomach. The crowd was out of it: not quite a funeral procession or a Cub’s game, but close. To make matters worse Tori Hunter did his best imitation of Bill Gramatica,  and injured his knee.

Then the Angels started chipping away, the momentum was turning. The Rally Monkey was released putting the crowd into a frenzy like fat kids on chocolate cake, and finally the game was tied at 5. You felt nothing would go wrong and finally the Angels would pull one out. Then it was mano y mano, my closer vs. your closer, let the stare down begin. Well not only did K-Rod blink, I’m quite sure his eyes haven’t even opened yet. Drew hit the 2 run jack in the 9th and it was game over. Now it’s 3 straight or we’re out.

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.

So it happened, we lost. The mental temptation to follow the history pattern with Boston will be strong. Yes, Boston has owned us recently and this decade they’ve been a clutch playoff team, but that was then and this is NOW. We can’t let the mentality of “here we go again” kick in.  Mike needs to stand up and rally the team, he needs to tell them “we can let Boston run us out of the playoffs again or we can ask ourselves, what would Ricky do?” Ricky would resist the urge to succumb to his past. He would stare done that temptatious blunt, understand it’s now or never and just say no. History doesn’t control the Angels, it’s up to them to change the pattern.

I’m sick of hearing about the Red Sox and “Red Sox Nation”, how great their fans are and how they have finally beat the Curse of the Bambino. I mean I get it, they’re a great team with a great story, but enough already. The team and the fans definitely have a vibe of “My Shit Don’t Stink”, and all other teams are sub par at best. Let’s not forget how long that curse stood, and how many World Series chances they let slip by before they finally broke it. Let me take you back in time:

1946 Red Sox vs Cardinals : Game 7, 3-3 tie in the bottom of the 8th, Johhny Pesky hesitates throwing home and the Red Sox CHOKE!

1967 Red Sox vs Cardinals : AGAIN game 7 and with the their ace Jim Lonborg on the mound the Red Sox CHOKE in an embarrassing 7-2 loss.

Are you starting to see a pattern?

1975 Red Sox vs Mets : Red Sox force game seven with a dramatic walk off home run only to CHOKE and give up a 3-0 lead they held until the 9th inning.

1986 Red Sox vs Mets : Game 6, Red Sox with a 5-3 lead in the 10th one out from winning the World Series CHOKE and the mets force game seven. Game seven Red Sox CHOKE again and give up an early 3-0 lead.

2008 Red Sox vs Angels ALDS Prediction : With a sputtering Red Sox line up including Mike Lowell with a torn labrum in his hip, and J.D Drew’s sore back (”Yes suck it up, how much are they paying you!”) this should be a quick series. I predict the Red Sox will yet again CHOKE and the Angels will win the ALDS series in four games, yeah heck I’ll give them one win because I know Pedroia will pull out at least one big game for his boys.

If you think I’m going hard on them, let me remind you the Boston Red Sox have two World Series Championships in four years, so I believe they deserve to be taken out in round one of these playoffs and our Angels are just the team to serve it up.