Falling Angels
When Boston came to town the Angels were in the catbird seat of the AL West. After two games the home team found themselves trailing the Rangers for divisional supremacy. But in terms of ascendancy in the Los Angeles area the Angels have surpassed the Dodgers in team management. The McCourts’ derelict ownership of one of the gems of baseball has prompted Bud Selig to announce that the league oversee the team.
Both Frank and Jamie McCourt used the franchise as their personal piggy bank even though the purchase was financed by debt. The Dodgers are weathering a series of setbacks: their owners are embroiled in acrimonious divorce proceedings, the McCourts shackled the organization with $433 million in debt (as of September 2010), and an attendee was viciously attacked on Dodger Stadium premises and to this day remains in a medically induced coma.
The worst that could happen at Angel Stadium is someone spilling a latte on you unintentionally. An overzealous Angels fan might yell in your general direction loudly if he looks up from his iPhone long enough to get his cue from the Jumbotron.
Unlike the McCourts Arte Moreno reaches out to the homeless community. Just last night they dressed up an itinerant man in authentic home whites and had him throw out the first pitch. Oh, wait — that was Dan Haren.
Haren has been pitching a notch below Cy Young candidate Jered Weaver. His first two innings were perfect and the third was shaping up to be another 1-2-3 affair until Jarrod Saltalamacchia shot a double that Torii Hunter inexplicably failed to snare. The catcher seemed to pull up lame but stayed in the game to advance on Marco Scutaro’s sac fly and score on Jacoby Ellsbury’s double down the right field line.
Jon Lester got two more runs to work with in the fourth. Jed Lowrie (name spoken in appropriately hushed tones) earned a two-out walk and advanced to third on J.D. Drew’s ground ball double to right. Carl Crawford arced a ball between three Angels, rookie Peter Bourjos, Hunter, and Howie Kendrick. Bourjos called off his teammates but then dropped the ball. Lowrie and Drew scored on the miscue.
In the sixth Lowrie powered a fly ball to left that glided over Vernon Wells’s glove. The official scorer was wary of giving Lowrie the chance at the cycle and ruled the play a double and an error. Drew singled up the middle and Lowrie scored again, a run that loomed large with the Angels’ late-inning rally.
With Daniel Bard unavailable Matt Albers and Bobby Jenks were put into service to be the bridge between Lester and Jonathan Papelbon. Albers surrendered a run when Ellsbury couldn’t glove Jeff Mathis’s shallow fly ball and the Jenks Jinx reared its bleached blond facial hair. But somehow the rotund reliever got Maicer Izturis to tap out to Dustin Pedroia for the final out of the inning.
While similar to April 12th’s accessory, Don Orsillo’s dark blue and white tie with parquet-like design had a bolder, more defined pattern.
| Game 19: April 22, 2011 | ||
 Boston Red Sox8-11 | 4 | W: Jon Lester (2-1) H: Bobby Jenks (2) S: Jonathan Papelbon (5) |
| 2B: Jarrod Saltalamacchia (2), J.D. Drew (2), Jacoby Ellsbury (2) | ||
| Los Angeles Angels 12-8 | 3 | L: Dan Haren (4-1) |
| 2B: Peter Bourjos (5), Howie Kendrick (4) | ||
