Mike Wright and Garrett Richards duel, Orioles beat Angels 3-0

Angels 0  Orioles 3

The offense may have been, once again, very run deficient but today they had an excuse: Mike Wright. A young stud making his major league debut is, in recent history,  baseball poison for the Halos, but today it wasn’t just because they were unfamiliar with the pitcher. He legitimately looked like he’s ready for prime time, and all of Twitter’s ears perked up when he struck out Mike Trout with a 98mph fastball in the first. He gave up four hits, no walks, no runs and six strikeouts in 7 ⅓ innings, and had the Angels in bewilderment. If you get into a pitcher’s duel against Garrett Richards, in your MLB debut, and you go toe-to-toe and come out on top, then, well...Mike Wright, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

Mike Wright may have had the edge on the scoreboard today, but going by the numbers and the eyeball test, I’d say that Garrett Richards was every bit as sharp on the mound this afternoon. His fastball was as beefy as ever, hitting the mid 90s into the 8th, when he was pulled for Mike Morin. Garret’s command never faltered and the slider was as gorgeous as ever, and he finished with seven Ks. It was with just a wild pitch that got by Carlos Perez that a run was scored while he was on the mound, but Morin let the game get further out of control and allowed another two runs in the eighth, making it 3-0. Pulling Richards at that point may have been questionable, as he was only a few pitches over 100, but if you do pull Richards, do you put in Mike Morin? Sosh is gonna Sosh, I guess.

So in a game where your lineup was sketchy sketchy as can be, you can’t really blame them for not getting many opportunities going. Outside of having runners on second and third in the fourth inning, their best bet at making it a ball game didn’t come until Wright was pulled, with one man on, and replaced with Brad Brach. However he handily took care of Marc Krauss and the inning was over. The ninth inning had the Angels in a do or die postion late in the game, again. It’s getting ridiculous, but like I said earlier, today was just a tough match-up. There are going to be some of those from time to time. Today, however, had the always fun scenario of close game, ninth inning AND top of the order coming up. If they were to pull something off, it’d be because of these guys. Or Johnny Giavotella. Of course, there was no rally and the Angels were shutout on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.

I will let this one pass. There have been many frustrating games in May, but this one featured a pretty good pitching performance from the opposition. Oh well, good news is we now have the rest of our Sunday to enjoy, so get out there and mow the lawn or do laundry or go see a movie or make some rad Jered Weaver gifs. Oh, and there's DUCKS and CLIPPERS on. Remember, though, that we have an early one tomorrow. 10am start, in Toronto. See you all bright and early.