It’s the youngsters early and the veterans late today. The Angels and Yankees play game three of their four game set with Jered Weaver facing Chien-Ming Wang. Wang’s never faced the Angels before, but it should be an interesting contest. The Angels philosophy is to put the ball in play. In the past, this played havoc with the Yankees, since it took away the ability of the New York staff to strike out batters, negating that strength. But Wang approach is to get the other team to put the ball in play, just weakly on the ground. It’s strength against strength here.
After winning his first seven starts, Weaver’s faced tougher opponents lately. And while he hasn’t lost, his strikeouts are down and his hits allowed are up. He’ll be facing the #2 offense in the league, after seeing 3 and 4 in two of his last three starts.
Later, on the west coast, the Dodgers go for a sweep of the Giants at Chavez Ravine. Greg Maddux hosts Jason Schmidt. Maddux is giving the Dodgers solid innings since the trade, allowing just two runs in twelve innings so far. He’s also reigned in the home run bug that hurt him for a couple of months. In his last 44 innings, he’s allowed just 1 long ball.
In three starts against the Dodgers this year, Schmidt posted a 3.32 ERA but and 0-2 record. The Dodgers drew 11 walks in 19 innings against the usually in control Schmidt. Twice the Giants lost his starts by a score of 3-1.
Enjoy!
Try again, Dave.
Wang started game 2 of the ALDS against the Angels last year. They hit about three balls decently off him the whole game. But the Yanks’ stinko defense betrayed him and the Angels won the game.
The angels own the yankees, especially in yankee stadium. over the past 10 seasons the angels have the best record of any team at yankee stadium.
I got that info from our good friend joe buck at FOX, so it must be true.
Monk,
Thanks for pointing that out. When I wrote that, I meant to go back and add “in the regular season,” but forgot. Sorry about that.