Final Score in Adventureland: Angels 3, Rangers 2
Jered Weaver pitched deep into the 8th inning, Kevin Jepsen blazed 100 MPH heat to Hold the game and Brian Fuentes got a Save with a dreadlocked asterisk as Erick Aybar made one of the great infield catches on a liner that you will ever see. Angels radio announcer Steve Physioc botched the last play of the game on KLAA, a screaming liner to 1Bman Kendry Morales that tired old Phyzz called a strikeout after ten seconds of silence, deflating any drama for Angel fans lucky enough to have missed the terrible announcing of Eric Karros and some monotone dreary yapper of a play by play guy on the Fox National telecast.
Vladimir Guerrero showed very little plate discipline, golfing Ball 2 of a 6th inning AB into the LF seats for his 6th HR of the season, but plenty of Angel fan "experts" will whine about him swinging at that pitch and demand he be lowered in the order. Vlad was on 2nd base earlier in the game when Kendry Morales doubled him home. Terrible, over the hill and sloppy on top if it all, right you bandwagoneers... uh, I mean, baseball experts?
Besides Weaver's masterpiece over a lineup that scored 11 runs against the Angels less than 15 hours before today's first pitch (7.1 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 11 K, 1 BB), Jepsen's truly game saving stuff dominated the Rangers late in a way that Ranger true believers are convinced is the sole proprietorship of their Mister Special Neftali Feliz. Jepsen came in with runners on 2B and 3B with only one out and got a strikeout and a flyout while everyone else in Southern California was biting their nails or stuffing fingers in their ears to avoid terrible announcers on radio and television.
When closer Brian Fuentes was brought in to get the final 2 outs against lefty batters, Erick Aybar nabbed a smoking Josh Hamilton liner up the middle for the inning's 2nd out. Little Glovey-Dovey Aybar had homered off of Eddie Guardado in the 7th inning to put the Angels ahead. Texas manager Ron Washington had brilliantly brought in Guardado to turn Aybar around and bat from the right side. What an idiot.
Meanwhile, to tarnish the lit-up Halo, one ha to wonder if Fuentes giving up three hard hit liners to lefties means that he is still lost in the woods of Incompetency looking for a return to Excellency Mountain. Check that radar gun, Kevin Jepsen might have inherited a spot closer to closing today.