Posted 9:36 AM by Sean
The Angels failed to take advantage of their situation in more ways than one last night. While Seattle, Oakland, and Boston - the teams they need to catch if they're going to make the playoffs - all lost last night, the Angels dropped something of a nail-biter to Baltimore, 2-1. Although Rodrigo Lopez pitched seven strong innings, with good movement and location, the Angels definitely had their chances, putting men on base in four of those innings as well as the ninth.

While some reports of the game focus on base-running mistakes as the reason for last night's loss, the silent partner in that crime was the Angels' lack of clutch hitting. Sure, Tim Salmon didn't advance to second on a throw to the plate after a sacrifice fly in the fourth - but that's not exactly a routine play, and in fact Jeff DaVanon was almost - should have been, if the play had been made, properly - out later in the game trying the same thing. But Troy Glaus didn't exactly come through with Salmon on first, grounding into a routine double play to end the inning.

In the sixth, the most controversial call of the game came when Darin Erstad was picked off first on a 3-1 count with one out and Scott Spiezio at the plate. I say "controversial" because it stirred up some pretty intense argument from Erstad and Mike Scioscia, who claimed that Lopez balked on the play, but it sure looked like a solid pickoff play to me. Spiezio subsequently walked, but Tim Salmon struck out to end the inning.

The Angels then had runners on the corners with one out in the seventh, but Garret Anderson failed to score on a fly ball to medium center. In hindsight, of course he should have tried to score - it would have been very close, and he might well have been out, but they needed to take the chance. But let's not forget that neither Bengie Molina, who hit that fly ball, nor David Eckstein, who grounded out to end the inning, was able to deliver a hit in that situation.

Finally, Troy Glaus was doubled off first to end the game when he ran on a pitch that DaVanon subsequently flied to left. Glaus may have been deked on the play by the defense, but he was also running with his head down until he was nearly to second, and didn't even look to see where the ball was until it was too late.

All in all, a fairly frustrating performance - especially given that, at any time, a single home run would have tied the game. This isn't a team that's built around the long ball, of course, but when every at-bat is an opportunity to tie or take the lead, and you miss them all...well, let's just put that in the past, okay?

The flip side of all of this, naturally, is that the Angels didn't lose any ground on Boston, Oakland, or Seattle (though Toronto did pull to within a half-game of Anaheim). But just treading water is obviously not going to cut it. Like the man said, we've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.

One other bit of cheerful news: Ramon Ortiz continued the starting rotation's recent string of good outings. Although he seemed wild at times, and lost a lot of balls low and/or away, on the two occasions he found himself in trouble he extricated himself fairly quickly. If, in fact, the starting pitching has righted itself permanently, that's a lot more important than one night of dopy base-running and missed RBI chances.