Reaching the Pinnacle

Ok, while I am trying something new with my baseball posts by looking at both of the Western Divisions in MLB, I gotta spend a bit of extra focus on the Oakland Athletics. I have always been an Anaheim/California Angels fan (as far as I’m concerned, the Los Angeles Angels were a thing of the 60s and well before my time), and I have despised the Oakland Athletics. They always seem to have been a thorn in the Angels side. But I have to admit that I am really impressed with what they’ve done in the past month+ of baseball. They’ve actually managed to make me root for them to win and that’s a huge accomplishment. With their win yesterday over Houston, the Athletics have gone from 10 games back on July 10th to tied with the World Champions for first place in the AL West. This is an accomplishment I was hoping my Angels would have done after the All-Star Break, but they just had too many injuries. I’m not sure how they’ve done it, but they have a chance today of taking over sole possession of 1st place from the Astros in a head-to-head matchup in a battle of aces – Justin Verlander (11–8, 2.52 ERA) vs. Sean Manaea (11–8, 3.44 ERA) – and it’ll certainly be a game to watch.

AL West

Angels 11, Rangers 7
Astros 1, Athletics 7
Mariners 5, Dodgers 4

The AL West featured 3 games again Saturday as 4 of the teams faced off against each other.

My Angels played a wild one that saw them break a 6–6 tie in the 7th with a breakout 5 run inning. Taylor Ward hit the first home run of his career while Shohei Ohtani knocked out a 3 run shot for his 13th of the year. The 5 runs proved more than enough to give the beleaguered bullpen a chance to pick up the win. While the Angels took the game, the Rangers fought well after going down 6–2. They had a 4-run inning of their own that nearly knocked Andrew Heaney out of the game, but he settled down and shutdown Texas in the 5th.

As I mentioned above, the Athletics beat up on the Astros in Oakland with a 7–1 showing. 8 doubles powered the offense and Trevor Cahill threw 7 innings of one-hit shut out ball against a Houston team that looks lost. They have fallen in 7 of their past 10 games and I don’t recall them struggling this much in the past 2 years. Will they be able to bounce back in the series finale or will they turn over first place to the Athletics?

The interleague game of the day occurred between Seattle and Los Angeles. The Dodgers have been struggling lately, and just like Houston, they’re 3–7 in their last 10 games. They’ve fallen outta first place and are actually sitting in 3rd place, 2 behind Arizona, and Saturday’s 10 inning loss didn’t do much for their morale. They actually gave up the win with a walk-off balk! Yup, a BALK! With the bases loaded in the 10th, Dylan Floro balked in the winning run in a game the Dodgers fought hard to tie up, even breaking a string of 29 consecutive saves by Edwin Diaz with a Max Muncy HR. It was a crazy ending to a good game.

NL West

Colorado 5, Atlanta 3
San Francisco 1, Cincinnati 7
Arizona 6, San Diego 7
Mariners 5, Dodgers 4

In Atlanta, it certainly looked like the Braves were cruising to an easy shutout victory. They were up 3–0 heading into the 9th and nailed the first 2 outs of the inning on infield grounders. Then the Rockies woke up and rewrote the scorebook. They smacked 2 doubles and 2 singles off the Braves bullpen to score 3 and tie up the game in the 9th and then added 2 more runs in the 10th to complete the comeback. While Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves continued to be hot, he couldn’t overcome the team-wide performance of the Rockies.

In Cincinnati, it was a different tale. San Francisco was held to no hits for 6 innings and then were pretty anemic once they started hitting the ball. they went 0–8 with runners in scoring position and left 8 runners on base.

And while there weren’t any late inning heroics for the Giants, the Padres shocked the Diamondbacks with a comeback and a game winning single. On a day dedicated to Trevor Hoffman in San Diego it was fitting that the team made a statement in the 9th inning. While the Padres may be in last place in the NL West they can still show the leaders that they’re not to be taken for granted. After coming back in the 5th with some solid hitting by Eric Hosmer and Cory Spangenberg, the Pads took the lead with a single by Austin Hedges. In the 7th, the Paul Goldschmidt showed why Arizona is currently in first place though as he fought back to help the Diamondback tie up the game. But then in the 9th, when san Diego used to call for Trevor Time and Hells Bells, it was the offense and Christian Villanueva who smacked a line drive to left to score Jon Jay to win the game. Definitely exciting.

Players of the Day

My Player of the Day goes to Shohei Ohtani who smacked a 3-run pinch-hit home run for the Angels in the 7th inning of the Angels’ win. As for pitching, I have to look at Oakland’s Trevor Cahill who picks up his 5th win and dropped his ERA to 3.12 as he out dueled Dallas Keuchel. His 7 innings of 1-hit ball drove the Athletics to their 2nd win in a row over the Astros and put them on the pinnacle of the AL West for the first time like forever.

Daily Ramble 244.2 | Sports – Western Divisions – Reaching the Pinnacle