Wild Gifts End Angels Losing Streak

After Joel Pineiro turned a 4-0 Angels lead into a 5-4 nailbiter, reliever Rich Thompson made sure Joel would, for the fifth straight start, be denied his 100th career win. With the score tied 5-5 in the bottom of the 7th inning, a three-walk, 1-hit, 2 Wild-pitch inning saw no balls leave the infield but two Angels runs score. Say goodbye to that 6-game losing streak.

Scott Downs was the pitcher of record when the gift run scored and picked up the W and Jordan Walden answered the call of Where's Waldo, earning a save with some nervous time on the basepaths. Vernon Wells crawled slowly out of his slumping hole toward the heights established by his mediocre predecessor Juan Rivera - King Lousy had his first three hit game as an Angel. Do that every game for three months and they MIGHT not boo you in Anaheim...

The big hit early was a bases-clearing triple by Erick Aybar, part of a 4-run 2nd inning - more runs than the Angels had scored in any of their previous 9 games. The last time the Angels scored more than three runs: May 30. The June Gloom may have passed, the team gained a game on Texas and now we just gotta get them back to the base...

Forget Taio Cruz, now that we got the W, we can have a little bit of the next letter in the alphabet, X. The postgame concert on this blog is by the Los Angeles X of punkrockville, our wild gift to all the Angels fans hungry for a scrap of the fun that follows a W. For one night at least, we rock.