Gibby does the odd thing that bugs me. For example. Steve Delabar's in for the eighth, with the one run lead, and he gives up a double and a triple (Jose Bautista came close to making a great catch on the triple) and it's pretty clear he isn't the 'All-Star reliever' that struck out the side on 9 pitches the other day. Gibby doesn't get another reliever up throwing until after the go ahead home run and after the walk that followed that. No one started moving in the pen, until the middle of the strike out of Hamilton that finally got us the second out of the inning.
Anyway, a few days after striking out the side on 9 pitches, Delabar almost gave up the cycle in an inning, he was just short the single (he gave up a walk in it's place. Delabar has been so good that we should allow him the odd bad game, but we have won so rarely that this hurt.
Todd Redmond toughed out 3.2 innings. He gave up a lot of hits (7) but no runs until the fourth inning, when he was running on flumes. Aaron Loup continued the magic act, giving up 4 hits but just 1 run in 2.1 innings. We had our first look at Neil Wagner, since his recall, he pitched a quick, clean, 7th inning, getting two fly outs and 1 strike out.
On offense, we had 8 hits and 5 walks, but 3 of our base runners erased themselves by getting caught stealing. Emilio Bonifacio, Jose Reyes (I thought he was safe, but then I was a fair distance from second base) and Edwin Encarnacion (I don't know why he was running) were all caught stealing.
Bonifacio and Brett Lawrie each had 2 hits, nice to see them coming around with the bats, finally. Jose Reyes hit a 2-run homer (to tied the back up in the 6th). The only Jay not to either get a hit or a walk was Josh Thole, who did hit a hard line drive, but right at the 2nd baseman.
The big defensive moment of the game came in the 4th when Jose Bautista hit a high drive to left that J.B. Shuck made a great catch on, leaping over the wall. I figured the umpires would have to review the play but they didn't. I'm not totally convinced he didn't drop and pick up the ball, when he was hidden by the fence, but it was an amazing catch.
The Jays got a run on a Angels error, with Colby on 3rd and Lawrie on first, Angels starter Tommy Hanson, tried to pick off Colby, then third baseman Chris Nelson threw wild to first trying to get Brett.Colby scored, Brett was thrown out going for second, a good trade off at the time. Nice to see other teams make dumb mistakes.
The Angels get a lot more fans out than the A's and have a beautiful park. I'll admit few of their 'fans' seem to watch the game. They seemed most interested in the wave. The pair behind me spent most of the game marveling that the Angels used to have a 'Salmon' and now they have a 'Trout', 'isn't that amazing'. Yes it's great, talk about something else ok?
We sat in a nice area, that had a menu and a waiter, a very civilized way to watch a game, someone else runs to get your beer and. in my case, a California roll for you.
They did have a great fireworks display after the game. It almost made up for the rally monkey videos. Almost.
Jays of the day: Reyes (.197 WPA) and Wagner (.104).
Suckage: Delabar (-.643), Redmond (-.262) and Thole (-.113).
One of my favorite parts of going to California is eating Mexican Restaurants. You might be surprised but there isn't a lot of great Mexican places in Calgary. We had a really good meal at one close to our hotel today and they made Guaqumole right at our table.