Now that they've had a few games under their belts, the Angels need to reassess how they're doing a few things. They're exhibiting much of the same problems as a couple nights ago, and even yesterday despite the 3-2 win.
Pitching needs to be more solid, period. Weaver did his job, though he struggled a bit with keeping things down in the zone. This seems to be a problem not only with starters, but with the bullpen as well. Hopefully, these are kinks that will dissolve once the players warm up a bit more and fall into the rhythm of the season. Hopefully having Shields back in the lineup will help.
The errors were limited today to nothing, that's good. That needs to stay that way. No use giving up a bunch of freebies they can't afford.
And hitting... man those double plays need to stop. They're grounding into far too many, and it's definitely costing them. They had 9 hits today. And only 4 runs got across. That's just not a good enough ratio, especially when their opponents are getting the same amount of hits and twice as many runs. Too many times they leave runners in scoring position, or even bases loaded.
Not to say there aren't good things going on. I still say Kotchman will be a Gold Glove this year. Hunter is settling in, Figgins is really getting things moving in the lead-off, Matthews is adapting to his new role, and Kendrick is starting to make me feel like he could do something real this time around (once he stops grounding into double plays). I really just wish someone would tell Guerrero to watch the ball instead of just swinging blindly at everything. He swung at a ball in the dirt way outside the plate and way low today. It was ridiculous, even I couldn't believe it. And we all know he's probably the best in the game at hitting crappy pitches. But really, he needs to learn plate discipline as well. He's usually great against Texas but he really failed this series, 0-4 today. He needs to wait for pitches instead of trying to pull them all. He can do so much better than what he's doing right now.
Tomorrow Saunders vs. Carmona. Carmona's not too bad; he's got some good numbers for sure. But, so does Saunders. I'm anxious to see how they do against the Indians, who are 3-3 right now, coming off a win over Oakland today.
Hopefully we'll see some progress in some of those problem areas soon. It's still early enough that it isn't too much of a deal right now, and they have time to experiment with changes and such. It's good to see that the team chemistry is decent right now, so that's definitely not going to be an issue for the season, I don't think. But pitching needs to start clicking here in a hurry.
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