MLB Baseball 7/31/10

Texas Rangers (60-43) at Los Angeles Angels (53-52)

Rich Harden (R) (3-3) (5.68)-Dan Haren (R) (0-1) (3.86)

By Mark-Saturday, July 31 2010 9:05 PM EST

Statistical Match Ups and Odds

Texas held 5-0 and 7-4 leads and still couldn’t put away the Angels in a disappointing 9-7 defeat. A win would have pushed their lead in the National League West to a nearly insurmountable ten games but instead saw it trimmed to eight with two games left in Anaheim. The Rangers were shooting for their fourth win in five games over a span of eight days over their division rival, but still are in the drivers seat and continue to make moves before the trade deadline in preparation for the final months of the season. One change they didn’t want to make was demoting Scott Feldmen who has struggled throughout 2010. Rich Harden goes from the DL to his first start since June 11^th after rehabbing in AAA. His problems have been walks and a lot of them with 43 in 65 innings.

The Angels playoff aspirations are slim right now despite a spirited come from behind win over Texas last night. That win will be all but null and void should they not follow it up today and Sunday with more of the same to cut in to a pretty steep deficit. Although the win ended a four game downturn, the LAA still have only three wins in the last ten games because their offense and lately the pitching has failed them. With the bats in a slump, the Angels rotation has found themselves in an unlikely leadership role as they have been trying to make a go of it and put games in the win column with meager support. They bolstered that rotation with the acquisition of Dan Haren from Arizona who makes his second start since the trade. He seldom received much support while a member of the D’Backs and it was much the same in his first appearance when he allowed two runs 4.2 innings before a line drive to the forearm ended his day.

Texas is 13-6 in the last 19 versus the AL West, 14-5 in their last 19 road games and 7-3 in Harden’s last 10 starts. The Angels are 1-4 in their last 5 home games, 3-8 in their last 10 overall and 1-4 in the last 5 versus a right hander.

Texas has what looks like a comfortable lead, but as we saw earlier in the year, the Angels can get hot and pick up ground in a hurry. I’m really not in love with this game with Harden fresh off the DL and Haren having struggled in the NL. I am thinking Haren might be the better of the two right now and if he gets hammered, you can probably mark the Angels off your list of contenders.

Mark's Pick: Los Angeles

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment