Ballpark Banter- Walk, knock, and some Oakland sock

1) The Oakland A's rolled into Anaheim Monday evening looking to take over possession of the AL West division from the Angels. They did just that as they abused Angel pitching in every sense of the word. It was one of those nights at the Big A where you knew it couldn't possibly end well for the Angels. There was a thick sense of bad karma in the air, as if the baseball gods felt they needed to brign the Angels back to earth after they won 4 out of 6 on their recent roadtrip in Boston and Detroit.

Jon Garland took the ball for the Angels and lasted into the seventh inning, but allowed seven runs on 10 hits and three walks. The righty added 5 strikeouts to his final game line. Funny thing about Garland is that he did not pitch terribly bad. It was simply one of those outings where everything seemed to fall in favor of the A's. When Frank Thomas is hitting triples and broken bat singles are nestling into the outfield grass, something is up.

There were numerous dinks and dunks that found holes for the A's, setting up big jams for Garland. To the A's credit, they got the big hit when they had an opportunity to take care advantage of all the bloop singles. Daric Barton launched a three-run hoemrun into the seats in rightfield in the third inning after Kurt Suzuki walked and Mark Ellis doubled. Jack Hannahan provided the other blast of the evening in the sixth, but that was a solo shot.

The problem for Garland was that his three walks and less-than-stellar command were exposed on an evening when he wasn't getting the breaks. When bloop singles are falling in, walks only compound the problem.

But it wasn't just Garland who struggled with the strike zone on Monday. Chris Bootcheck came on in relief in the seventh inning and got two outs while walking three and allowing seven earned runs. This made for some brutal baseball-- nothing kills a game like walks, and especially when the game is already out of reach. Bootcheck couldn't finish the inning, and left to an array of boos.

There isn't much that needs to be made of this ballgame, as it is only one day on the schedule and the Angels have gotten pretty good pitching recently. It was simply one of those wacky days where all the breaks fell the other way and the Angels were relatively shut down by Oakland's Chad Gaudin.


2) After being seemingly left out of the Yankee rotation last week after Hank Steinbrenner's Joba-rant, Mike Mussina has responded like you would expect the consumate professional to respond. Mussina has put together two good starts in a row now, as he went five innings and gave up two runs against the Cleveland Indians Monday evening.

Yes, five innings is not enough for a starter. If that is as long as they can go, then the bullpen is going to be toast in September. But this is about all Mussina can give the Yankees at this point in his career, and they should be thankful if he takes the ball into the sixth inning and the opposition has three runs or less. Not stellar work, but at least they will be getting some positive return on the final year of their investment.

The good news is that this will allow the Yankees to win a lot of games from the fith spot in their rotation, due to the explosive offense. The hitters will just have to be on their game when more so when wang and Pettitte are not on the mound. But with Joba good for the seventh and/or eighth innings, things are looking good for New York because closer Mariano Rivera has been outstanding in the ninth inning this season-- he has converted all 8 save chances without issuing a walk or an earned run in 11 innings pitcher in 2008.

The Yankees will need to watch the progression of Alex Rodriguez' quad injury as he may have reaggravated it on Monday night. Rodriguez was eager to be in the lineup to "keep his leg lose", but manager Joe Girardi will have to be careful with his thirdbaseman because the Yankees can ill-afford to lose A-Rod for any extended period of time.