Angels 5, Orioles 2: At least it took less than three hours

by Stacey on Jul 3, 2009 1:42 AM EDT in Post-Game

Jeremy Guthrie turned in another poor outing tonight, causing me to officially lose my faith. This entire season I've honestly believed that Guthrie would turn it around. Every start of his I think to myself, "This is the one where he'll turn it around." But he hasn't. Sadly, I now think that he won't.

Jeremy Guthrie isn't an awful starter. If you take out the game where he went only 2/3 of an inning, he's averaging over 6 innings a game. He doesn't walk a lot of batters, he rarely gets blown out. There is a place on many major league teams for a pitcher like Guthrie in the rotation. The problem is that he hasn't been to the Orioles what he was the last two years, and he isn't the pitcher that the Orioles need him to be.

Guthrie came into tonight's game in 2nd place in the majors in home runs allowed. Not happy in 2nd place, he gave up two home runs to Bobby Abreu to regain the lead. Of the 5 runs the Angels scored, Abreu knocked in 4 of them. Guthrie settled down after the 4-run 5th and pitched two more scoreless, so at least he saved the bullpen for tomorrow and the rest of the series. Chris Ray pitched a scoreless 8th inning thanks to good defense behind him. He gave up two singles to start the inning, but Aubrey Huff made a nice pick to start a double play and Nolan Reimold made a great diving catch in left to strand a runner at third.

Though Guthrie was ineffective again, it's not as though the offense did their job either. The 2009 version of John Lackey hasn't been as good as in years past, but you wouldn't know it the way the Orioles batted against him tonight. They managed just two runs. The first came off the bat of Matt Wieters, who knocked in Nolan Reimold. Reimold had reached on a single and stolen second base to get into scoring position. The second run scored on Luke Scott's 16th home run on the year. Luke was discouraged about becoming the team's DH this year, but he is flourishing in the role so far. All told the O's managed only 4 hits off of Lackey, who pitched 8 innings.

David Hernandez makes his fourth career start tomorrow vs. Ervin Santana. In his three starts so far, Hernandez has had one good start, one bad start, and one so-so start. The rotation spot is his for the next few months with Koji on the disabled list. Game time is 10:05 eastern time.

Poll

Who was tonight's Most Birdland Player (MBP)?

Nolan Reimold (single, stolen base, run, web gem)

80 votes

Luke Scott (16th HR of the year)

35 votes

no one

27 votes

142 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

oh crap

just realized i forgot to create an MBP poll. Give me a second.

I will lead these Peoples to the promised land, also known as "Slightly Ahead of the Blue Jays." ~WietersRunDry

by Stacey on Jul 3, 2009 1:43 AM EDT reply actions

Observations from "the big A"

• you can see the stadium from several miles away. There really is a "big A’, with a halo over it, it’s about 8 stories tall
• beautiful place to watch a game. sort of bright and open. great concessions. pricey, but i love a place that doesn’t make me go far for a good beer. there was a stand selling Harp right outside my section, which made the game far more palatable. the ushers were exceptionally friendly and jovial, despite the fact that I was bedecked with all kinds of O’s gear.
• more on the stadium: they copied the split-level bullpen from camden yards. there’s a fake mountain in centerfield, which is appropriate for a place that’s close to Disneyland. after an Angels homerun, they set off fireworks, which I actually thought was cool. nowhere near as annoying as the jackassy and bone-jarring “big ben chimes” they do at Yankee stadium
• I have noticed before that fake breasts are not uncommon in the population of young women who attend baseball games. they are also not uncommon in southern california. so SoCal + baseball = a sea of fake breasts in the concourses tonight. it was a little staggering.
• Angels fans are super quiet. The are constantly being extolled by the LCD operators to MAKE SOME NOISE!!!! and I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!! They kind of sit back and chill and work on their tans, even though they’re all tan already and the sun is down. One mixed couple (O’s/Angels) left in the middle of the 6th inning, and we were giving them some hassle for leaving early, and they signaled they were just heading out to get baked and would be right back. VERY mellow. :) A few other O’s fans and I were making a modicum of noise throughout the game, and when birdman took the pic, I was extolling the folks in the rows behind me to say something back because their team needed them to be vocal without the LCD leading them. Also, I was yelling at them not to leave in the seventh inning. A few of them said some shit back and were heckling me (very pleasantly and politely) towards the end of the game. I considered that a victory. It was like watching baseball with Mr. Rogers, or something
• I’m heading back Saturday night with Mrs. Zk. Really looking forward to it. :)

June 30, 2009 — Birdland Day

by zknower on Jul 3, 2009 2:07 AM EDT reply actions

That place always looks packed

Though I have to believe going to an Angels game out there is more seen as just a hip place to be than anything else.

How big was the Baltimore ex-pat population? I have to imagine that place gets packed with Ex-pat New Yorkers when the Yankees come to town.

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words—"mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
-Jack Handey

by jobe on Jul 3, 2009 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions

there were a decent number of Os fans

but hard to spot because orange doesn’t stick out as much in a sea of red. Also most of the O’s fans I saw were wearing a hat, but not an orange shirt or the like.

June 30, 2009 — Birdland Day

by zknower on Jul 3, 2009 4:38 PM EDT up reply actions

i was born

right across the street from that big A

by twistedlogic on Jul 6, 2009 8:57 AM EDT up reply actions

you can see the stadium from several miles away. There really is a "big A’, with a halo over it, it’s about 8 stories tall

After each win, the Halo stays lit all night. Kind of neat I guess especially if you’re an Angels fan driving home on the 57 and you’re don’t know if your team won or lost that night.

Oh, last thoughts on the night. CC’s Zachery Knower is a riot. Favorite moment, after an Angel SOed to end the inning, Zachery gets up, turns around, and give the raise the roof motion to the crowd behind him. Good times, we’ll have to do this again Zach.

"Your wife told you to play in New York.
Well, my wife told me you look like a dork." Boo Teixeira guys.

by birdman on Jul 3, 2009 2:21 AM EDT reply actions

I think it was more of a bad luck outing than a poor performance for Guthrie...

Granted the first pitch Abreu HR off of was a poor pitch all the others were not too bad. The 1-2 pitch Izturis nailed for a triple…Nick played it pretty well, climbed and missed it (these a plays Nick made all the time last year…this year there have been several attempts, but they have been an inch or two off). The 0-2 pitch seemed like a great pitch…well placed inside. I could’ve sworn it would be a routine fly-out, but it soared out. Besides these incidents he seemed just fine…

…The inning that Ray pitched could’ve been better. The leadoff hit was a groundball that Andino would have swallowed up…instead Ty (yes…hes been hitting better) barely gave an effort to get it. This was one of the first time we’ve seen a ball that wasn’t hit straight at him or one he could charge.

Luuuke is real strong, but I voted Reimold for MBP because of the catch. But I did see him have a bad at bat where he swung at the first pitch then at the next one (a low and away slider well outside the strike-zone(cough AJ cough)) disappointing… Nolan… disappointing.

On a positive note the Umpiring was great…like comparing Brad Bergesen to Adam Eaton : ) also Adam Jones looked pretty decent at the plate and in the field…though he was robbed from having a base-hit twice (one on a sharp line drive to Lackey and the other on a would be double by the third baseman (who I think was Figgins…?)). Lets do better tomorrow…go O’s!

by Tetris on Jul 3, 2009 3:45 AM EDT reply actions