The Los Angeles Angels seems to be depending on their younger brigade of players to keep them in contention for their title race. The Los Angeles Angels are three outs from beating the Texas rangers in a series and all this is due to the performance of the 23 year old rookie player Jordan Walden. He recorded two quick outs in the last game against Texas Rangers. This was followed by a bloop hit, a stolen base and instructions from pitching coach Mike Butcher. But all these did not ruffle Walden. He retired Chavez for his 23rd save and this set up a franchisee record for the rookie player, Jordan Walden.
Angel’s manager Scioscia is full of praise whenever he talks about rookie Walden. He is seen as a season saver for the Angels’ by his manager. The fight that has been put up by the Angels side for being in contention for the American League West race is solely due to Walden’s effort. This is the first time in the 12 year old career of Scioscia with the Angels that the club has fielded a rookie for so many top spots. But finally, this has turned out to be the right decision.
Rookie player Mark Trumbo is the leading scorer of home runs (19) for his Angels club. The high speed performer and second year man Peter Bourjos has done his team proud with his defense techniques. But unfortunately he has pulled up a hamstring in July and is still not fit to play for the team. Walden is the top rookie player among the many rookies so far in the Los Angles Angels team. His performance has led to his name being included in the All Star List, a first by the club since 1997.
Walden said that he is very much elevated by getting an ALL Star experience as he was drafted into the team as Rivera’s replacement. Walden has walked the tough path since then and his performance this season speaks volumes of his capability to sustain the big game pressures quite easily. Walden said that his success is attributed to him taking one game at a time and planning for each and every game with different strategies. He has a very dodgy fastball that can reach about 98 mph and his velocity is most consistent when it comes to delivering this fastball.
CC Sabathia has earned the major league baseball’s best 16th win during the match between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox team in Chicago last Monday. What this means is that the White Sox has suffered its fourth consecutive defeat at the hands of the New York Yankees. This time the final score line read as 3-2 in favor of the Yankees. The left hander Sabathia was not in the best of pitching forms for this game. But, he managed to pitch himself out of trouble many times and eventually picked up his 16th win of this MLB season.
The White Sox tried all their might to keep pace with the Yankees. But without the services of their ace slugger Paul Konerko they found the going a little bit tough. Sabathia, despite his poor form in this game when compared to other games this season, now has improved to 9-1 with a 1.76 ERA in his 10 starts for the Yankees team. The players who score the three homers for the Yankees are: Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano. Curtis had an RBI double and that set the tone for Yankees. Cano came up with a running score in the first inning. Granerson made the matters easy for the Yankees after scoring on Cano’s double-play grounder in the third.
The presence of white Sox’s most prolific hitter Dunn did not cause any damage to the left handed pitching skills of Sabathia. Dunn has been struggling off late to cope up with the left hander pitchers’ throwing and this was the case even against CC Sabathia and his team too. Sabathia in his post match interview said that he enjoyed the tussle with Dunn and acknowledged that Dunn has had a bad year so far in MLB. He was quite aware of Dunn struggling against lefties this season and hence Sabathia was just not trying to experiment too much on his pitches and decided to keep it simple and straight.
The Yankees have moved to 7-2 wins in the last nine games and attribute their last victory to their in form pitcher Sabathia. The New York Yankees have now moved into the top position in the American League East. The Yankees will have to do a lot of travelling from here on as they have more than 21 road games to be played this month.
The fury that Jered Weaver showed during the Los Angeles Angels match against Detroit Tigers catcher Alex Avila last Sunday will finally put him in contention for a possible six match suspension. The Los Angeles Angles will have to suffer the major brunt of this suspension on Weaver, as he has been an important player for them in the last few games. There is expectation filling the air that Weaver will be meted with the same type of punishment that Cleveland pitcher Carlos Carrasco got when he threw the ball close to the head of Kansas City player Billy Butler last Friday. So, Jered Weaver will have to sit out for six matches under suspension and also will have to pay a hefty fine for his mediocre attack on a rival player.
The incident took place during the Angles’ 3-2 loss in Detroit as Weaver did not like the actions of the sluggers, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen of the Detroit Tigers, who both took their time to get into the batter’s box and also wasted time rounding the bases after hitting the home runs. These activities by his opponents did not go well with Weaver and he was in full blast against the tigers players. The plate umpire Hunter intervened and asked Weaver to stay calm and also advised both the benches not to escalate this situation. This warning was totally ignored by Weaver as he was still upset with the actions of the opponent. Weaver threw a fast ball close to the head of the next hitter Avila of the Detroit team and this unruly action on weaver’s part paved the way for his and his manager Mike Scioscai ejaculation from the match.
The Angles manager Mike said that not team will like its pitcher to be thrown out of a ballgame. It is unfortunate that the team had to lose Weaver at this point of the season. All the team needs to do is to stop dwelling or pondering on this incident and look forward to what’s in store in front of them for the next couple of weeks. If Weaver is to be punished, then this will be the first time in his MLB career that he has been fined or suspended for showing dissent in the field of play. The respect that most layers had for weaver will be thrown out of the window due to this incident.