Start with seven, end with a heavenly Halo win

Angels 11, Tigers 5

Just another day in the life of the Los Angeles Angels without Mike Trout.

On his birthday, Trout sat out yet another game, but it didn’t seem to matter to the Angels, who thrived with Eric Young Jr. in center field.

A casual viewer of Tuesday night’s game may be forgiven for forgetting that Andrew Heaney started and put up somewhat of a dud. As is his proclivity, he started off rather weakly, allowing two runs in the first on a single-single-double-wild pitch.

The Angels didn’t take long to respond. They drew Jacob Turner, he of the 5.26 career ERA. He quickly showed his stats. After Kole Calhoun and Justin Upton singled, Shohei Ohtani launched a seemingly innocent fly ball to left-center. It went longer than expected.

Albert Pujols followed with a lazy grounder to Jose Iglesias, who proceeded to throw the ball into the ground. The Angels would not squander it. Andrelton Simmons and David Fletcher dumped singles into right, Kaleb Cowart walked, Francisco Arcia singled, and it was a HALO BLITZ! A no-out HALO BLITZ!

That was before the **double-steal. THE double-steal, where EYJ stole second and Arcia dashed home, as patented as can be. When the dust settled, it was 7-2.

Heaney continued to have trouble, and he ultimately only lasted five innings, allowing five runs with a nasty line of eight hits and two walks.

Jim Johnson came in and EYJ did THIS:

I mean, on one hand, there was no reason to keep him in the minors for this long, and on the other hand...there was no reason to keep him in the minors for this long. Dammit, Billy.

Justin Upton got in on the fun:

Finally, Williams Jerez made his major league debut! Acquired for Ian Kinsler, he threw 95-96 with a wipeout slider that got Nick Castellanos for his first big league K. He also allowed a double, but we all know secretly that Justin Upton should not be in left field. He came back and worked the 9th.

A throwaway moment from the broadcast happened in the eighth inning when the cameras caught a shot of a fan holding up a sign that said something along the lines of, “All I want for my birthday is a picture with Simba,” with Simba in the foreground, getting ready to hit. Victor Rojas, as charmingly snarky as ever, remarked that if the fan wanted a picture, they could rewind the broadcast and screencap the moment when Simba and the fan juxtaposed on screen. Never change, Victor.

Check out those brooms tomorrow???!