Posted 2:55 PM by Sean
The Angels beat the Devil Rays last night, 2-1. Well...maybe that's putting things a little too strongly. Jarrod Washburn certainly deserves credit for his performance, 6.2 innings of shutout baseball, and the bullpen brought him home nicely - particularly Brendan Donnelly, who pitched the final 1.2 innings for the save. But against Tampa Bay pitching, the bats scratched out only two runs, and those were mostly due to a wild pitch and an error. Okay, Brad Fullmer was out on a controversial call at the plate. But they also blew scoring opportunities, such as when Eric Owens broke for the plate on a double-steal waaay too early and was easily tagged out by the catcher. And clearly there's some guys in slumps: after terrific starts, Anderson, Fullmer, and Salmon have all seen their averages drop down to .300, meaning they've been batting significantly under that for the last couple of weeks. Ironically, after carping about a need for Erstad to return, about the only guy producing consistently is his replacement, Jeff DaVanon, who went 3 for 4 last night. In the last 11 games in which he's had an at-bat, DaVanon is 17 for 37.