Angels beat Twins 7-2 on three dingers, including Albert Pujols’ history-making HR #600

Angels 7 Twins 2

The Halos won tonight, in dominant fashion, over the visiting Minnesota Twins. This was quite the big win for the home team, as they’d just lost a couple games in a row to the Twinkies, by varying degrees of ineptitude, and they needed to stop the skid before it became a full-blown losing streak.

Matt Shoemaker would take the mound, and look good, and the Angels would get some homers and put runs on the board, and they would win the game. Let’s be real here, though...the only thing anybody in the Halosphere cared about this evening was whether or not tonight would be THE night. Home run #600 for Albert Pujols had to happen eventually, right?

Well, tonight was the night, ladies and gentleman, and man, was that one hell of a moment...for Angels fans, for Pujols and his family, for his teammates, for baseball fans everywhere, young and old. We got to watch history unfold right before our very eyes, and I’ll never forget that high-arching beauty of a grand slam that Pujols sent into LF, off of former Halo hurler Ervin Santana.

Ok, so let’s talk about the REST of the game a bit, shall we? Shoemaker rebounded from the nastiness that we saw in his last outing, going 6.1 IP/2 R/ 2 ER/ 3 BB/ 5 K and getting his 5th win of the season in the process. This is more in the direction that I thought Shoemaker was headed after some recent starts in which he was electric, so The Cobbler holding this Twins lineup to a couple runs (including one off of a Max Kepler HR, because they can’t play a game without giving up a homer) is a great sign.

Andrelton Simmons hit his 6th HR of the game, and right after that, Kole Calhoun hit his 8th homer of the year. Calhoun now has three HRs in the last three games. The Angels shellacked the Twins for 12 hits total tonight, including THE ONE...that grand slam, from Albert Pujols...yes, the dude hit a grand slam for his 600th dinger of his illustrious career. This guy truly is The Machine.

The Halos won decisively, Shoemaker can hold his head high after tonight’s start, and Kole Calhoun seems to be getting his swing back, thankfully. All of that to get to a 7-2 win on a Saturday night, and the chance to get a series split with a win tomorrow. Nobody is thinking about that stuff right now, though.

Tonight is Albert Pujols’ night, a time to celebrate #600, and a night where we can bask in the moment we all got to share together in our amazing Angels fan community. I’m going to be riding this emotional high wave for a few days, minimum. Then it’s back to the quest, this time for all-time hits, RBIs, and #700. Knowing Albert, he’s already thinking about that stuff as I type this right now.