Two starts ago, Jered Weaver was primed to be the first pitcher in Major League Baseball to reach seven wins. Friday’s game, however, saw the defending American League Champion Texas Rangers hand Weaver his third-straight loss. It wasn’t for lack of trying by Weaver, who allowed four runs over six innings with six strikeouts.
On offense, the Angels failed to back up their ace, going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. Alberto Callaspo made a key baserunning error in the seventh inning. Callaspo led off the inning with a double and overran a deep Hank Conger flyout, failing to tag up in time to take third. After Conger’s flyout, Mark Trumbo grounded out, allowing Callaspo to advance to third. Had Callaspo properly tagged up, he would have been able to reach home, making the score a more competitive 4-2. Of course, Texas starter Alexi Ogando pitched well enough that it may not have mattered anyway.
Ogando held the Angels to one run on six hits over 6.1 innings. The lone run scored against Ogando came on an Erick Aybar solo home run in the third, tying the game at 1-1. After that lone mistake, he settled down and kept the pesky Angels from scoring for the rest of the night.
Along the way, Adrian Beltre showed the team that pursued him over the off-season what they were missing, hitting a solo blast in the sixth and grabbing a Torii Hunter grounder with his bare hand to get the first out of the ninth.
Los Angeles holds a half-game lead over Texas. The Angels and Rangers play the second game of their series Saturday at 1:10pm PDT.
