“Welcome back,” said the lit Halo to Rene Rivera

Angels 3, Padres 2

I’ve always respected Coldplay’s Chris Martin for learning the lyrics to The Scientist in reverse so they could get this cool video. Undoubtedly the best part of the song is the chorus, when Martin sings, “Nobody said it was easy/ No one ever said it would be this hard/ Oh take me back to the start,” which on one had could be a reference to the fact that making this music video was not at all easy and took many scientist technician people to create.

The other, more reasonable explanation, is that Chris Martin is a secret Angels fan and, upon following the Angels in 2018 (and really for a lot of the Angels’ existence as a franchise), travelled back in time and proceeded to sing the feelings in his heart out. These 2018 Angels are not easy, by any stretch of the meaning of the word. Injuries, inconsistency, even incompetence have plagued the team throughout much of the year. If we could be magically transported back to the start of the year, when we were 13-3, many of us would take it in a heartbeat.

Nonetheless, all one can do is march to the beat of his own drum. The Angels twice had one-run leads today, on an Albert Pujols sacrifice fly and on an Andrelton Simmons sacrifice fly, but they were both countered. The Angels never trailed, but the game was never comfortable, either.

Felix Peña took the ball and showed us all how National League ball is played. He dominated the Padres through six innings, just allowing one unearned run (proving that the National League may be the inferior hitting league) and took his hacks at the plate, grounding out twice and not really making a real attempt to run towards first base. From what we’ve seen so far, he’ll probably be penciled in at first tomorrow.

Then Cam Bedrosian proceeded to do Cam Bedrosian things, and Cory Spangenberg hit a homer with 2 outs and 2 strikes on him. So Cam.

The man of the hour, Rene Rivera, returned from the DL, in his first appearance since May 16th...he just smacked one right into the left field bleachers.

Blake Parker got the save, and it was history.

3-2 win.

Nobody said it was easy. But the Angels completed a tough win against a subpar opponent and get the opportunity to say they swept someone. Break out those brooms!