Trout, Calhoun, defense lead the Angels to victory over Dodgers

Angels 5, Dodgers 4

It’s games like these that keep you hoping. Looking at the two teams Tuesday night, you could have been forgiven for thinking that the Dodgers were the better team. And they might have been. But the Angels led a calm, asserted attack spearheaded by the greatest player in baseball, Mike Trout, and timely pitching shut down the team in the playoff spot.

The 50/50 raffle at the game was donated to the Tyler Skaggs Foundation, a sum of $80,207 in total. It was the first game for the Angels after the Celebration of Life for Skaggs that occurred Monday afternoon. Once again, Skaggs’ jersey was in the dugout. Once again, the Angels won a game they maybe shouldn’t have. There were close calls, well-struck balls, and generally a lot of luck.

It started on the defensive side. Andrelton Simmons and Mike Trout put on a clinic:

Both Simmons and Trout are at the point where nothing they do is surprising. More surprising, however, was the Angels pitching. After Taylor Cole pitched a scoreless inning, Félix Peña came in and limited the damage despite pitching through a cut on his finger.

Shohei Ohtani, in his one plate appearance of the day, smoked a run scoring single into the outfield, giving the Angels a one run lead. After Corey Seager tied the game on a sacrifice fly, Trout stepped to the plate.

Boom. With that swing, Trout passed Garret Anderson on the Angels all-time HR list. He is currently in second behind Tim Salmon.

Ty Buttrey escaped a mess that Justin Anderson entered, and then it was Kole’s turn.

Cam Bedrosian pitched a perfect eighth. But in the ninth, it got a little gnarly as Hansel Robles put runners on base. The Dodgers cut the lead to one, and with two outs and Cody Bellinger on second, Kike Hernandez lined a single into right.

Hard.

Where Kole Calhoun was waiting.

Dino Ebel inexplicably sent Bellinger, and the rest is history.

Bellinger was the third Dodger runner gunned out at home tonight.

I like to give shoutouts to give home plate umpires, and Sean Barber was near there today. The zone was a little wide, but it was consistent. I’ll take that any day.

The Angels win the season series against the Dodgers, and damn if it isn’t games like these that make you want to believe. Believe something. Believe nothing. Believe that this team is so screwed up that it doesn’t have any sort of pitching staff to make anything happen. Or believe that over the next fifty-eight games, anything can happen.

We’re nasty.