8 is Enough

Thursday, the Angels offense woke up and while the Blue Jays pitched around Trout, they scored 8 runs and it was plenty.

Valbuena hits 2

Actually, Trout walked 3 times and scored twice on a day where he played DH with a sprained finger. While Toronto tried to avoid letting Trout hurt them, their strategy didn’t work. For a change the guys behind Mike were able to make them pay for pitching around him, particularly Valbuena. He smacked 2 home runs and picked up 3 RBIs in 4 at bats.

Kole Calhoun smacked a home run of his own, the second in 2 games, and it looks like his time on the DL might have paid off. Let’s hope his slump is over.

As far as pitching, John Lamb was decent and kept the team in the game for a bit over 3 innings and the bullpen kept the Blue Jays in check…at least they only gave up a couple runs.

Beside the win, this game represented Trout’s 1000th game and the comparisons to a couple of Hall of Famers are pretty incredible. The facts that he’s scored more runs than Willie Mays and hit more home runs than Mickey Mantle at their 1000th game are pretty incredible and demonstrate that we are watching a true talent. Obviously his opponents recognize that since they’ve walked him 67 times in 75 games this year…hopefully the supporting cast will perform more like Thursday and cause pain whenever teams try to avoid letting Trout cause them harm.

In any case, Trout does not get my Player of the Game today, rather I give it to Luis Valbuena who really came through for the team.

Today, Andrew Heaney (3–5, 3.64 ERA) takes on Marco Estrada (4–6, 4.66 ERA) in the second game of the 4 game series.

Daily Ramble 272.3 | Sports – Angels – 8 is Enough