Another Bullpen Fail

I suppose we cannot blame it all on the bullpen once again but it gets really frustrating to see a team fight to tie the game in late innings only to have the bullpen give up runs in the last inning and lose.

The inability of this bullpen to hold the lead is becoming legendary right now. The Blue Jays started out with a three run lead in the third given up by Felix Pena…and the Angels fought back in the fourth and fifth to tie it up. Immediately we see that Toronto comes back with two runs given up the sixth off Noe Ramirez. It’s almost kind of comical to see the Angels offense, which is having its struggles, fight to come back and tie up a game only to watch the bullpen give up the lead almost immediately.

In any case, the Blue Jays extended their lead to 6 to 3 in the eighth only to see the Angels fight back to tie it up 6–6 in the bottom of the eighth. That’s where things stood heading into extra innings. Of course Toronto hits a homerun in the 10th and the offense of the Angels can’t respond. It’s another victory for the opposing team due to a bullpen failure.

The frustration lies in the fact that every fail seems to be a different bullpen pitcher. There’s no consistency in what they’re doing because the bullpen seems to pitch well until they don’t. One day it’s Ramirez, the next it’s Parker, but in between, they pitch pretty well.

Oh well, the Angels are now 10 1/2 games behind Houston in the American League West and 4 1/2 games behind Seattle in the wildcard. They’re not playing very well and hopefully this next 10 game road trip well help them turn things around.

On the positive side four Angels had multiple hit games. Justin Upton, Andrelton Simmons, Kole Calhoun, and Maldonado all had two hits a piece. Martin Maldonado gets my Player of the Game for going two for four with a double, a run, and four RBIs.

The other interesting part about this game was two Interesting Challenge plays, one at third base that went against the Angels way and one at first base which went for the team. It sure seems to me that there are a lot of challenge plays going on this year and many of them in situations where bad calls on the field critically impact the game. I’m not sure if I like the challenge system and to me sometimes it’s successful. Yesterday we were reminded that even these challenges are subject to human failures.

Today the Angels play a make up game against Kansas City featuring left-handed Tyler Skaggs (6–4, 2.81 ERA) against right-hander Brad Keller (1–2, 2.63 ERA). Skaggs is coming back from a bout of hamstring tightness and hopefully will continue his good pitching.

Daily Ramble 276.1 | Sports – Angels – Another Bullpen Fail