We open a three game series against the Anahiem California Los Angeles Angels tonight (late tonight for you folks in the east) and since I've been too lazy busy to send some questions off to the bloggers of teams we are playing, I thought we'd take a quick look at the Angel on our own.
The Angels are 21-25 so far this season, in third spot in the AL West, but just 4.5 games out of first. He all likely remember that they swept us back in the middle of April at Rogers.
The pitching match ups are:
Brett Cecil (3-2, 4.98) vs. Joe Saunders (3-5, 4.42)
Saunders threw 8 scoreless innings at us on April 17. He is coming off 3 good starts in which he allowed 2 earned runs in 22.1 innings. I could point out that the three games in question came against the Mariners, A's and White Sox, but that's still pretty impressive. He's a left, throws mostly the fastball and changeup. He has given up 7 home runs so far this year so we should be able to take him deep.
Ricky Romero (4-1, 2.71) vs. Ervin Santana (3-3, 3.75)
Santana plays a pretty mean guitar...no no this one had a one run, complete game when he faced us in April. In his last three starts he's had two good, one bad. He gave up 10 hits and 5 runs in 6.2 against the Mariners on the 9th. He is 3-3 with a 4.95 ERA in 7 career starts against the Jays.
Brandon Morrow (3-4, 6.80) vs. Joel Pineiro (3-5, 5.00)
Pineiro didn't get to face us in that first series. In his last start he got thumped by the Cardinals, giving up 9 runs in 3 innings, the big hit was a grand slam by pitcher Brad Penny. The start before that he threw a shutout against the A's. He is 2-4 with a 4.55 ERA against us.
Offensively they really don't have one guy that is carrying the team. Guys hitting well are:
Kendry Morales: 293/.344/.494
Torii Hunter: .286/.355/.503
And their catchers:
Jeff Mathis: 324/.351/.500 but he's injured at the moment.
Mike Napoli: .259/.344/.519
Ones not hitting include:
Brandon Wood: .156/.168/.213
Hideki Matsui: .227/.302/.373
Juan Rivera: .246/.297/.423
Erick Aybar: .246/.311/.307
Brandon Wood is one of those ones that I was hoping the Jays would go after, at one time, but I'm glad they didn't. It makes you appreciate Aaron Hill, he might not be hitting great but he does take the odd walk and has 5 home runs.
As a team the Angels are scoring 4.35 runs per game (Jays 5.24). They aren't the power hitting team we are, they have 46 home runs while we have 76. Team batting lines:
Angels .251/.312/.397
Blue Jays .247/.312/.471
The Angels pitchers have a 5.13 ERA while ours is 4.48. They have given up 51 homers compared to 35 for us.