AH, THE BEAUTY OF IT.

Today was Escobar's 100th career win. But more importantly - okay, it's not more important, but it works to segue here, so get over it - he won his 17th game of the season, and is now 17-7. Nevermind the 5 runs, or 6 runs, whatever, that will inflate his ERA ever-so-slightly. Who's paying attention? Not me... *cough cough*... But who can complain, when he's getting decent runs support? And I say decent, but really mean RIDICULOUSLY AMAZING run support. 18 runs? 3 times more than the opposing team? And even the 6 runs they scored is a decent amount of power.

So 10 runs yesterday, 18 today... I'm anxious to see what happens tomorrow. I just love watching it when players are out with injuries. And usually for any other team, that equals BAD. But this is the Angels. EVERYONE has something incredible to contribute. I mean, come on, Figgins back in the outfield, still doing his thing. Izturis in the daily lineup, somewhere. The way the last article on him (the whole thing about the shoes hurting his feet and whathnot) sounded, Scoscia expects to have Izturis as an everyday player, a starter. That's a big deal for a guy like Izturis, who is on a team with an incredible wealth of players who can do an assortment of jobs, and extraordinary players, like Cabrera, in their natural positions. So where does that leave space for Izturis? Everywhere he fights for. And he fights for everywhere. And what's good about that? Izturis is ridiculously talented. In the field, AND at the plate these days (he's still probably the most reliable guy on the team with runners in scoring position. He RARELY misses that opportunity).


But in the 9th today, we saw about a billion guys switched in, just for fun. I understand why, too. Angels up by a score-full of runs (do you notice a pattern of overexaggerating? Good.) and no need to really over-work the starters when the post-season is fast approaching. They need to save their energies, conserve from even more stupid injuries (yes, stupid injuries. Not stupid players, because they aren't stupid. But that sprained ankle, that messed up tricep, stupid injuries. Yes. The injuries, IN AND OF THEMSELVES are what I'm calling stupid) while they can before those players become completely inexpendable in the post-season. But this time of the season is fun to watch, because you get to see guys you wouldn't normally see playing, and everyone on the Angels team is in places they never are. For example, Figgins in right tonight for Vlad, while Iz takes over at 3rd. A friend of mine and I actually had a discussion about this (where people could be placed) and found about a hundred options. It's really amazing how successful the team can be even with their usual starters out, and the rest of their guys in positions they played maybe 6 times over the whole of LAST season. Ah, depth. Beautiful.

So the Angels buried the Orioles, times three. Also beautiful. For the second night in a row. Times two, times three. Maybe times four tomorrow? 4-1, 8-2, 24-6??? Ha! That would be a ridiculous game to see...

But here I go jinxing it. If we lose now, I'll cry.

Shall we celebrate early by bringing out the brooms?

SWEEP!