Angels Take Final '06 Twinkie Series 2-1

Except maybe Jose Molina.  Nice of GA and Vlad to catch Jr. Felix disease in the sixth.  I counted four consecutive swings at pitches out of the strike zone against a guy who had already walked a hitter and had three ball counts against two of the next three hitters.  Brilliant.

Juan Rivera.  If he's not hitting a ton, he should be nowhere near center field.

I agree Seitz...I'd either DH Juan or pinch hit him.  GUARANTEE Murphy wouldn't've done any worse in that spot.

S

That Scioscia ignores the need for the "up-the-middle" defense rule sometimes when he's usually faithful to "old school" baseball philosophies.

S

Figgins made an amazing play in center field earlier in the series... kennedy would have probably gotten more outs out of 2nd base tonight than figgins... and rivera has been shakey in the outfield as of late.  Hopefully some lessons have been learned.

Oh.. and we shouldn't have given up on the game when we were only down 3 runs going into the 9th.  Hector "The Game is Over" Carasco's performance was a slap in my face after I cheered for 9 straight innings despite only having 3 hits.  We could have made it interesting without the below angels bullpen standard that is Hector Carasco.  We needed another stop so we could get another rally going in the 9th and Carasco isn't a stopper.  Fuggin sheet.

SIX ERRORS!!!

By my count, the Angels committed six errors; the official scorer took pity and only charged them with three.  It was the single-worst display of defense I have personally seen in 30 years of attending baseball games.

Cabrera looked safe at 1st to me, in breaking up the no-no.  At the beginning of the inning, I told my dad that Cabrera would break it up.

The first ball hit out of the infield was Vlad's flyout to end the sixth.  That's pathetic.

Blame of the game goes to anyone except Cabrera.  Carrasco deserves some blame.  If he does his job, it's a 3-run game going into the 9th with arguably the team's 3-best hitters (Vlad, Morales & Salmon) coming up.  Yes, they still would have been facing Joe Nathan, but those three guys would have been capable of tying the ballgame.  Carrasco ensured that there would be no such heroics.

Actually, this isn't really a game note, but a stadium discovery (which I actually first noticed on Tuesday).  One of the concession stands on the View Level (around §§415-416) serves Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  This was one of my top-3 in the recent beer poll.  But the maddening thing is that there's no way of knowing what beers are served at the Big A unless you personally visit each and every concession stand.  Previously, I thought my acceptable choices were limited to either Rolling Rock from the Domino's on the View Level, or Sam Adams (also in my top-3) at the concession stand on the 200 level all the way down the 3B line and therefore terribly inconvenient.

I don't know how many times i have posted this on HH..?  Figgy is a menace!  Please add Hose Molina to this list at well.  Can he actually catch a ball that goes a little to his right?

Dear Mike, here's how i roll...

I play all my best players.  

Take that book out of your ass and let the VOODOO happen!

you have a harder time winning games when balls are rolling under gloves and guys are swinging at bad pitches. i'm officially on the figgins and quinlan Haters list. these guys are licking it badly.