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Angels 7 Tigers 0
Finally. Welcome back to the world of respectable baseball, Angels. It’s good to see you kick some visiting team tail in the Big A on a Friday night. How much tail did they kick? Well, the Angels beat the Tigers 7-0, and that was their first seven-run lead of the 2017 season. Yes, everything was firing for this team tonight, and it was beautiful.
Luis Valbuena had quite the evening, going 3-5 with a dinger early in the game, Andrelton Simmons had a multi-hit game, as did Cliff Pennington and Kole Calhoun. The offense was clicking like we haven’t seen in awhile, if ever, this season, to be quite honest. Sure, maybe it was Jordan Zimmerman, the Tigers’ starting arm tonight, who we should be thanking for his struggles.
Nah, this was all the Halos bats, waking up after a frustratingly-long slumber (at least it seemed like an eternity to me), and giving their boy Matt Shoemaker some run support. Oh, and just to add a cherry on top of the night’s proceedings, Mike Trout hit a gigantic 430 ft homer in the ninth. That’s the consummate showman, not letting his audience leave without a big finale.
So, is this a slumpbuster for the offense, people? I’m hoping yes, slumpbuster.
Speaking of slumps, Matt Shoemaker has looked really ragged in his outings as of late, finding ways to give up big hits, but tonight he was looking more akin the Matt Shoemaker of 2016. He was inducing whiffs aplenty, and his only knock would be that it took him quite a bit of work just to get through six innings. But who cares, when he pitched six innings LIKE THAT!
Shoemaker finished with 6.0 IP/ 3 H/ 0 R/ 0 ER/ 1 BB/ 7 K...that is LEGIT, dudes. That’s the Cobbler that we fawned over last year, am I right? At the very least, it’s a huge step towards the right direction. Six SCORELESS innings and seven strikeouts, one walk and three hits? Yes please. Every night, Shoemaker.
He didn’t catch fire til after his May 21 start in the ‘16 season, and we’re approaching that time, so I think it’s safe to say he’s getting read. Engage: Matt Shoemaker PRIME. Man, if we can see some offensive outings like this more often, and Matt Shoemaker can give us another magical, bearded run, with a bullpen with studs like David Hernandez being stingy to opposing bats, then I’d be in baseball heaven.
We were hoping this is the type of game we’d see during this slate of non-AL West opponents coming up. The slumpbuster, the catalyst to get them going again and the Mike Scioscia ship sailing into calmer, happier waters.
Now we see how they respond to this win in the game tomorrow. This Angels team is showing me some great things. Now they just need to get that secret sauce right on a nightly basis. Fingers crossed.