Week 3 Halo recap - The Good, the bad, and the Meh

Last week, the Angels were outscored 21-25, had a record of 3-4, and only scored an average of 3 runs per game.  The good news is that Mike Trout has been found, and when he busts out of slump, he does it in the very Mike Troutiest way possible, going from a .220 AVG on April 19th to .299 after last night's game.  There were other highlights, and of course lowlights from last week.

THE GOOD

Mike Trout went 10 for 24 last week with a pair of home runs and a .517 OBP.  Considering he was batting .185 about 12 days ago, I would say his April slump is officially over.

Rafael Ortega finally started hitting the ball to the tune of a .308 average in 13 at bats.  Nothing crazy, but considering he was batting .125 going into last week, he may be finally coming around.

Another player getting into the swing of things is C.J. Cron, who has looked lost at the plate most of April.  A .263/.333/.421 slash line is hopefully a sign things are changing.

Behind the dish, Carlos Perez had a 44% caught stealing rate (compared to Soto at 18%)

Pieces of our bullpen have been doing their job. Who knew that our bullpen could end up in the "good" section?  Mike Morin, Fernando Salas, Joe Smith, and Greg Mahle combined for 0 walks and 9.3 scoreless innings last week.

The rumors of Jered Weaver's demise have been greatly exaggerated as he now has 2 strong starts in 3 outings.  Last week it was 7 strong innings of 3 hit ball with only 1 run allowed, and picking up his second win.

Thanks to a lousy offense, Garrett Richards got the loss last week, even though he only gave up 1 ER and 4 hits through 6.1 innings, in what was arguably his best start this year.

Hector Santiago continues to impress, cutting down 17 batters last week in 13 innings.  He racked up 2 wins and was nearly untouchable with a .136 opponent batting average.

Ji-Man Choi got his first big league hit.  Congrats kid!

THE BAD

Unfortunately, good pitching only gets you so far when you have the worst offense in all of baseball.  Through the entire season so far, The Angels are LAST in all of baseball in runs scored, batting average, on base percentage, and hits.  Last week, the average runs scored per game was 3 with a .205 AVG.  If you take out Mike Trout, the team AVG was a measly .179.  Pitching is important, but isn't any good when your offense is THAT BAD.

Speaking of bad offense, Albert Pujols hit a HR last week, and that was about it.  Two hits a .077 AVG with only a .153 AVG on the year.  The question is, how long will he be batting 4th with those numbers?  Answer:  Mike Scioscia is out manager, so pretty much all year.

Other offensive offensive performances last week were gad by Craig Gentry, also with a .077 AVG, Carlos Perez (good thing he can throw out runners) with a .091 AVG, Yunel Escobar (.143), Johnny Giavotella (.188), Kole Calhoun (.200), and Andrelton Simmons (.208).

Matt Shoemaker is broken again.  He had a decent 2 run start early in the week, but was thrashed by Seattle over the weekend, giving up 6ER in 3 innings of work, including 2 home runs (he gave up 4 last week).  Shoemaker had a .308 AVG against him last week.

Jose Alvarez Pretty much dumped all over the mound and completely blew 2 out of his 3 appearances.  In 4.2 innings, he gave up 7 hits, 6ER, and had a .368 BAA.  At least leading up to last week, he had a 0 ERA, so hopefully the meltdown will be temporary.

MLB Power rankings have the Angels in a free fall, dropping from 16 to 22 last week.  They call Hector Santiago "a nice, underrated mid-rotation guy."  Of course that's kinda scary since he's basically our ace right now.

THE MEH

Only 1 SB last week. Of course, you have to get on base to steal.

Most games, The Angels continue to have maybe 1 inning where they score runs.  It worked well in last Monday's game, when they plated 5 in the first inning, but generally speaking the majority of innings are runless, boring, and underwhelming (unless Trout is up).