Angels get offense and pitching working in concert, beat on Blue Jays 6-1

Angels 6 Blue Jays 1

Well, that’s definitely how you win baseball games. You have a good starting performance, and it then gets bolstered by some strong offensive work and nice outings from your bullpen. It was all on display tonight, in a Big A that still has too many Blue Jays jerseys than I’m comfortable with, but whatever.

Ricky Nolasco was the man on the mound tonight, and he went six innings of scoreless baseball. That would ultimately be good enough for his second win of the season, a game in which he would only give up five hits and walk two. The rub is that he needed over a hundred pitches to get to that point. It aint always pretty, but it gets the job done.

A good portion of tonight’s offense came from Kole Calhoun ( 2-4, 2 R, 1 RBI) and Mike Trout ( 2-4, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 SB), as well as the 590th homer of the year for Albert Pujols ( his 30th of the season), a big, clutch hit from Shane Robinson and Andrelton Simmons and Jefry Marte got in on the action with a groundout RBI.

The Angels would generate six runs, even on a night when they ended multiple endings with GIDP ( which of course they lead the MLB in that category) and seemed to try and limit their own chances in some self-defeating fashion, but ultimately the runs poured through.

They had a 6-0 lead, and the bullpen came in and held the ship steady in it’s course, excluding one run given up by Cory Rasmus in the 8th. Andrew Bailey came in for the 9th and closed out the game without issue.

Fancy hitting, clutch hitting, stout pitching, and even a highlight-worthy slide & tag avoidance from Mike Trout...lots to love about tonight’s game. So let’s take some time to love it. Ok.......GO!