Angels walk tightrope, finally fall off in ninth in loss to Blue Jays

Blue Jays 4, Angels 1

Alternate title: East coast shills conspire against history in 4-1 Angels loss, call themselves “umpires.”

Yes, they were bad (again). Yet, like in all sports, the entire game cannot be boiled down to a few calls by the paid officials (last night was an extreme exception).

Because Jaime Barria took the bump for the Halos Saturday night, and in the second inning, you could tell what type of game it was going to be. The fielders might as well have gone home, because Barria walked two and struck out three. For most of the night, he seemed to be overthrowing, attempting to strike out batters when his MO should be to pitch to contact and get easy outs (a la Parker Bridwell). Yet, when all was said and done, it was a second straight poor outing for Bridwell.

The scoreline says 5 innings, 1 run allowed for Barria, but had the Blue Jays been a more ferocious team instead of meek birds, that total could have easily been 7.

In the third, Teoscar Hernandez popped a jack into left-center, which would be the only run for another five innings.

Mike Trout had another uneventful night, striking out three times and hitting a seeing-eye single through the hole at short. The last of those three strikeouts, in the eighth, proceeded a big blast by Luis Valbuena.

In that inning, Jays pitcher Seunghwan Oh struck out Trout, Justin Upton, and Andrelton Simmons, giving up a HR to Valbuena. In other words, he struck out the three best hitters on the 25-man roster and gave up a solo shot to probably the worst hitter on the roster. Baseball, folks.

But because we still have the same crew as yesterday...and Thursday...the game wouldn’t be complete without some pro blunders. All 8th inning and on, mind you.

There was that.

There was this. Russell Martin would later single.

And for good measure...

Steve Pearce hit the three-run blast that effectively ended the game.