Game 58 – Confusing Playoff Results

The line on Marcum looks a lot worse than it actually was. Of the 11 hits the Angels recorded against Marcum, I would say only 4 of them were hit hard. That is a lot of bloops and broken bat hits.

Very bad time to get caught off of 1st when there is already a runner at 3. Eckstein should know better and the key is to just freeze in those situations where a line drive is hit near an infielder. Not like the Jays are hitting great w/RISP anyways, but you’d like to have another shot at getting a hit to drive in the runner from 3rd.

It certainly does not help the Jays offence woes when having to face Lackey, Rodriguez, and Shields. I’ve always liked the Angels pitching staff and can never figure out why they haven’t had better success in the playoffs. They haven’t exactly had offensive juggernauts, but they have a lot of team speed and use that to manufacture runs. Come playoff time I keep thinking this team has the pitching to shut teams down and all they’ll need is a couple runs, but other than 2002 they have haven’t found much success in the playoffs.

I must say that I’m glad to see an umpire make a controversial call in the 9th inning go against the home team for once. Although in reality there should be no controversy about it, Willits was well inside the line when Barajas’ throw hit him. It’s just not a call you see very often and so I get the fans booing since they are probably unfamiliar with the rule, but why did Mike Scioscia have to argue for so long.

It was nice to see Gibbons trust Frasor in an important spot, just too bad he couldn’t come through and will now find himself back in the doghouse for a couple wks even though it wasn’t him who loaded the bases.

It is amazing to see the number of ill-fated throws made by pitchers to one of the bases. For guys who are paid millions of dollars based on their ability to throw the ball accurately to the catcher they sure seem to have a lot of trouble throwing the ball anywhere else.

Let’s see some stats:
Adv+: Kendrick
P-Adv+: Marcum (3)
NAdv: Stewart (4), Anderson
P-NAdv: Marcum (4), Lackey
WG: Rolen (5)
ME(r): Eckstein (2)