Nich Hall

After Monday nights game against Tampa Bay the Angels had lost all four of their games against the surprising AL East leading club. After the Angels rather alarming 13-4 loss to Tampa in the first game of the series the Angels streak of seven consecutive series wins was in serious jeopardy. Faced with their first real challenge in the past month the Angels responded exactly how a championship (potential) team should. In Tuesday nights game the Angels got to it immediately, Garret Anderson hit a two run homer to get the ball rolling. Jered Weaver didn’t look back pitching eight terrific innings. Weaver threw 110 pitches, 70 of them for strikes and gave up just a solo homer in the eighth inning. After the game Weaver described his effort, “I felt real good tonight.” I guess so, it didn’t hurt that the Angels quickly built a lead with six runs in the games first five innings.

This afternoon John Lackey picked up right where Weaver left off. After surrendering an first inning run to Tampa, Lackey retired 14 straight batters. But the Angels despite Lackey’s tremendous effort could not solve the Rays lefty Scott Kazmir. Through four innings the Angels couldn’t even manage a hit, ironically Kazmir retired the first 14 Angels batters he faced. With two outs in the fifth Gary Matthews finally got the Angels on the scoreboard with a solo shot to make it 2-1 Tampa. In the top of the seventh the Rays added a run to their lead and it appeared the Angels were going to waste a great game from Lackey. But a two out rally in the bottom of the seventh got the Angels back in the game. After a Casey Kotchman and Robb Quinlan single, followed by a walk Maicer Izturis laced an bases loaded single to bring in two runs and give the Halos their first lead of the game. Mike Scioscia described the progressive nature in which his club got to Kazmir, “We kept getting better at-bats as the game went on, worked deeper counts and for not having much action in the first four innings, we had his pitch count up and got to him later in the game.”

In the eighth inning Vladimir Guerrero lead off with his tenth home run of the season to add a key insurance run. And of course this column wouldn’t be complete with Fransisco Rodriguez coming in to seal the deal. K-Rod set down the three Rays he faced to pick up his 24th consecutive save bringing his league leading total to 27. Today the Angels will enjoy a day off before welcoming the Atlanta Braves to L.A.

Friday:

Angels (41-26)- Jon Garland (6-3, 3.87) vs. Braves (32-34)- Jo-Jo Reyes (2-4, 4.80)

7:05 PM PT

Notes:

Chone Figgins is expected to be back in the lineup Friday after recovering from an strained right hamstring suffered May 3 against Baltimore.

Nich Hall

Heading into the season most people would not have anticipated that the Angels and Athletics would both be playing over .550 baseball in June. The AL west was supposed to be Seattle’s right? Cue the Youtube clip of their manager freaking out after being swept by LA this past week. Suffice to say at least to this point the West has been a two team race between LA and Oakland. Each team has thrived with excellent young pitching and timely hitting. Heading into this weekend the Angels and Athletics had split their previous four meetings.

Last night Oakland ran into a familiar face they would probably prefer to avoid. John Lackey the Angels’ starter last night held a 12-3 lifetime record against Oakland. Last night he continued to wreak havoc on Athletics’ batters. In seven innings of work he struck out five batters and surrendered just four hits and one run. Lowering his season ERA to 1.70. At one point Lackey retired 15 straight batters. After the game Lackey tried to explain his success against Oakland, “It does seem a lot of them have been bigger games because we’ve been going against these guys for the division for a while, that may help a little bit.” Whatever the reason Lackey has made it quite clear over his first five starts of the 2008 season that he is healthy and back to his All Star form of 2007.

Maicer Izturis lead the game off with a home run the first of his career. Outside of Izturis’ homer the Angels were able to covert seven hits into three runs. Vladimir Guerrero and Jeff Mathis each drove in a run and the Angels lead 3-1 heading to the bottom of the eight inning. From there on in Jose Arredondo and Fransico Rodriguez each pitched an inning of shutout baseball with 14 pitches each. For Arredondo it was his eight consecutive inning of shutout ball, and K-Rod added another save to his league leading total of 25. With the win the Angels have won six straight and 13 of their last 17 games. The Angels also increased their record in games decided by two runs or less to 27-12 in 39 games. The win over the Athletics also increased the division lead to 4.5 games the biggest lead this season for L.A.

Today

Jon Garland (5-3, 3.99) @ Greg Smith (3-4, 3.56) - 6:05 PM PT

Nich Hall

Heading into the season a lot of experts agreed the Seattle Mariners were the team to beat in the AL West. The Angels despite a plethora of injuries seemed to have a quite confidence that they were being underestimated. This past week and really all season long the Angels have proven their point. In the past series the Angels took care of the Mariners with a style that is becoming more familiar to baseball fans every passing week. The Angels delivered with timely offensive production and outstanding pitching from starters right down to the pen. Today was no different.

The Angels wasted no time in getting out to an early lead with Howie Kendrick and Torii Hunter combining for three RBI’s to get the ball rolling. The Angels, who never trailed in the contest, added two more runs in the fourth inning and for Jered Weaver and Co. that was just enough. Weaver who gave up four runs in six innings of work turned the game over to the bullpen and they did not disappoint. As they have so often this season Darren Oliver and Justin Speier pitched shutout baseball in order to get the ball in the hands of Fransisco Rodriguez. K-Rod naturally did the job for  Mike Scioscia picking up his league leading 24th save to secure the 5-4 win and series sweep for LA. After taking care of Seattle the Angels have a record of 37-24 and trail only the Chicago Cubs for the best record in baseball. For a team still trying to get healthy could this season possibly have started any better? That being said on the night when the defending World Series champion Red Sox have caught Tampa Bay in the East the Angels I’m sure remember no pennants are awarded in June.