Garrett Richards Strong, Mark Trumbo Strongest; Angels Get Back On Track In 6-1 Win Over M's

Tonight we saw a vintage Angels victory. Well, by "vintage" I mean Late-May-2012 vintage. Led by a dominating performance by recent call-up Garrett Richards and a studly 4-4, 2 HR game by Mark Trumbo, the Angels erased the bad Voodoo taste of last night's loss and got back to the win column.

The game saw a couple notable MLB firsts:

1. Garrett Richards got his first MLB win tonight. It was total domination by Garrett Richards, as he went 7 innings, struck out 8 and only allowed 1 run. If the kid can continue to put up outings like this, then the calls for Ervin Santana to be put on the trading block are only going to grow louder. Of course, we probably don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We will definitely have to see how he does in his subsequent starts, but to pitch so well the night after Ervin Santana couldn't get a win out of the same amount of run support definitely does not make Black Magic look good. Do I think they'd actually do something with Ervin, even if Richards strings together a few good starts? Not really. But it will get people thinking, talking or yelling. And who knows? Maybe it'll get Santana focused.
2. Surprisingly, tonight was Mark Trumbo's first multi homerun game of his MLB career. For a youngster who has been our most formidable slugger for the past one and a third season, it was kind of shocking to realize he hadn't done that before. Perhaps he was not to be outdone by Mike Trout's 4-4 game last night, or perhaps he just had an extra pancake or two for breakfast this morning, but regardless of the reason, he was locked in.