Houston Astros have no chill, just keep beating up the poor Angels

Angels 3 Astros 13

Well, that hot streak sure was fun while it lasted. Shoot, they Angels may even get back on that good-pitching-great-hitting horse again in their next few series, but one thing is for sure: Houston has this club’s number right now. That’s the 11th consecutive win for the Astros over our hurting Halos, the second longest losing streak against a team in Angels history. Hope you enjoyed this weekend of historically bad baseball; when it follows the torrential downpour of great games we saw in the first week after the All Star game, you can straight up feel the abrupt and painful slap in the face that Houston just dished out.

So, Tim Lincecum and his Angels experiment may be just about over, as much as that pains me to say it. It was just his 7th start with the new club, and in it he only made it 1.1 innings. In those short, measly four outs he gave the Angels, he gave up THREE Astros bombs, and a couple additional extra base hits.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the Angels were down 8-0 and already dipping into their taxed bullpen. If you want to be kind, you can maybe speculate that Lincecum is still figuring stuff out; the more harsher commentator may just put it more plainly, like “he’s not good at baseball anymore, guys”. No matter how much, or how little, you want to spin it, The Freak is just not getting the job done. Of course, they don’t have anybody that can do TOO much better; you’re looking at guys like Jhoulys Chacin or perhaps calling up Nate Smith. They are painted into a corner with their injuries and meh farm system, so they may just be going with the ol “ball up into fetal position on floor, close eyes and hope that the season ends soon”.

The bats were, of course, ice cold, until it didn’t really matter any more. While the Angels were chipping away with things like a Kole Calhoun sac fly or a Jett Bandy homer (there’s some positive news! Scioscia is in love with this kid, I bet), the Astros were continuing to smash them into dust. When the carnage finally ended, and the ground stopped shaking and the Angels players collectively woke up from their Minute Maid nightmare, the scoreboard said 13-3 Houston. An thorough ass-kicking of our Halos this season was punctuated with a nut shot of a finale. Awesome.

Angels are now 43-55, and they head to Kansas City next. The hope is that the Astros are just an invincible, unbeatable foe, and once they get back to other opponents, that magic from last week will return. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that Houston are total jerks! Geez, just let us win one, guys. C’mon!