Angels run into Robbie Ray wall, fall to the Diamondbacks 7-3

Angels 3  Diamondbacks 7

The Angels kicked off a two-at-home, two-away inter-league series against the Arizona Diamondbacks this evening, and it was a mostly faceless, mundane affair, thanks the the Angels inability to hit opposing pitcher Robbie Ray, as well as their continued commitment to making errors on the field and on the basepaths. The Angels would eventually make it close, but it would just be the usual, inconsequential late inning sound and fury signifying nothing but a loss and a sullenly eaten microwave lasagna for Sosh in the clubhouse later on.

Jered Weaver was on the mound for the Halos and had most of his damage done on just a couple hits. Paul Goldschmidt hit a three run bomb to center in the third, and Yasmany Tomas hit a solo shot in the sixth. Those four runs  would have been enough to win the game for Arizona, and it would all come on just a couple mistake pitches from Weaver. He didn't pitch as poorly as the score would have it seem, and would end up making it through seven, striking out four and walking two. One other run came when Kyle Kubitza, fielding a Carlos Perez pickoff at third, miffed the catch and the balled rolled into left field, allowing the runner to score. Another error for the rookie third baseman, and another opposition run is wrapped up with a bow and delivered to them by bad defense. After six innings, the Diamondbacks were up 5-0.

It wasn't just the defense that was carrying over from yesterday's sloppy play seminar, though, because the Angels also got themselves another big out on the basepaths. The Angels were actually getting blanked by Robbie Ray so badly that they didn't have a hit until the sixth inning, when rookie Daniel Robertson(in his first start of his MLB career) hit a single to shallow right field. With a baserunner at last, Erick Aybar came to the plate and hit a screamer down the left field line. Robertson advanced  to third, but Aybar ignored all good baseball sensibilities and tried to go for second, and was then gunned down by a large margin. It wasn't even close. That would be the last out of the inning, and as soon as they had gotten their first men on, they found a way to run themselves out of an inning.

They would make some noise in the bottom of the eighth, once they had knocked Ray out of the game and gotten to reliever David Hernandez. After a Johnny Giavotella walk, a Kyle Kubitza hit, some pitching changes by Arizona, an error, wild pitch and a Mike Trout double, the Angels would finally be on the board, now down 5-3. Of course, the ground they made up was rendered moot in the ninth when Fernando Salas was put into the game and did his best Bad Fernando impression, allowing two more runs to score and ramping the score up to 7-3 Arizona.

The bottom of the order would be up in the bottom of the ninth, and this scraping of the bottom of the baseball barrel would result in what is, hopefully, a bottoming out of bottom tier performances against bottom feeder teams. The last two games, the only impressive thing about the Angels is their knack for finding even more boring ways to lose games and mess up on the field. Right now, this team is 99 Cent Store olive loaf on some off-brand white bread, and we may see a totally different, totally potent team tomorrow. I will champion that team's prowess when I see it; until then, I will lament this one, and do my best to forget about tonight.