Angels Howie Kendrick Personifies Unclutch Team

There are a bunch of statistics to prove that clutch hitting doesn't exist, yea yeah yeah. But Mike "Surrender" Scioscia knows enough to bring in Kevin Jepsen to gascan a game that is out of reach when Howie Kendrick is still, after six full seasons in the big leagues, still waving at trash reliever fastballs a foot out of the strike zone.

In a game where the Angels only managed three hits (two by Kendrys Morales), they actually had the bases loaded in the 8th inning down 2-0 with two outs and Kendrick at the plate. After 21 games with the mantra that every Los Angeles batter of Anaheim should take a few pitches, Howie watched a fat fastball go by the heart of the plate twice before swinging at a high and away waste pitch. Call it gutless, call it unclutch, but don't say he didn't look at a few pitches.

I think this leaves the Angels ten games behind the Rangers after 22 have been played but I don't really want to look, do you?

If Howie gets labeled "Prince Unclutch" it is only because Albert Pujols, aka Her Majesty Queen Alberta, has been a royal bust with men on, with the bases empty, probably with finding a mansion in Coto De Caza, too. Stop and smell the Santa Ana Carntias, Señorita, you're drifting into historic terribleness.

Oh and Torii Hunter lost a ball in the sun and looked like a horse's behind shaking in action doing it. I hope he calls himself out in the postgame LA Times slobberfest as intently as he wagged his finger at everyone for not winning, wait, when was it, last week? earlier this week? The losing is a long endless haze of foggy nightclubs and three-hitters in the glaring sun that none of them could face as men, the losing was their crutch, they walked alone on darkened streets with 24 other teammates to blame for the numbing sensation in their gut.

The Angels went 1-5 on the kind of road trip they used to take names and burn rubber on. This is the beginning of our new age and it is an imploded sink hole that knows only gravity's pull downward.