Final Score in Anaheim: White Sox 2, Angels 1
Yeah, I know the game in Oakland isn't over yet, but it's 10-3 Rangers in the 8th inning, and I'm not going to come back and edit this later. So there it is, 2010 is officially over for the Angels, except for the fact that there are still 9 games remaining, but that's academic at this point. We've all known this was coming for a couple of months now. I made my peace with it long ago. There will be time to argue the details later.
As for the game itself, it was pretty typical for this team. A good effort by the starter wasted by bad defense, stranded base runners, and Fernando Rodney. Joel Pineiro took just 92 pitches to breeze through 8 innings against the White Sox, being touched only for a solo homer by Paul Konerko. The Angels did scratch out a run off Freddy Garcia in the 4th, but that was it. Fraudney was in a hurry to get the afterparty, so he walked Juan Pierre (also known as the least dangerous hitter in baseball) in the top of the ninth, and he eventually came around to score after a couple of singles. And that, as they say, was that. Ununbelievable!
As a more interesting side note, Mike Scioscia obliged the clamoring fanbase by putting 5 players with less than a year of major-league service time in tonight's lineup (Bourjos, Conger, Romine, Trumbo, Wood), three of whom were called up just this month-- one even today. Abreu, Hunter, and Matsui all played, though, which still left the median age on the field at, like, 47. Anyways, the kids said "thanks, dad" by going 1-for-17 with 5 strikeouts, along with two throwing errors. We should be seeing a lot more of this next week now that the Angels are officially dead. Maybe it's necessary, but it sure isn't much fun to watch.
So this is the way the world ends.