Angels Get Blanton’d, Lose 10-5

As well as Jerome Williams had been pitching during his time in the rotation, it simply wasn’t enough to bump Joe Blanton to the bullpen. It also didn’t help Jerome’s cause that Blanton had looked pretty good over his last three starts. Then Blanton goes and pitches the way that he did today. Just. Wonderful.

It wasn’t all bad though. The Angels got out in front early when Albert Pujols took Ryan Dempster deep for his 10th home run of the season. That lead held up until the third inning when Daniel Nava got the Red Sox on the board with an RBI single. Two batters later, David Ortiz took Blanton deep to right-center field, giving the Red Sox a 4-1 lead.

Alberto Callaspo got one back the following inning with a solo home run, his fourth of the season. But Jacoby Ellsbury tripled home Mike Carp in the bottom half of the inning to push the Red Sox lead back to three. Mark Trumbo got the Angels back to within two when he singled home Mike Trout in the fifth inning, but that was as close as the Angels would get to the Sox.

After Blanton set the Sox down in order in the bottom of the fifth, he opened up the sixth giving up a home run Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Mike Carp followed that up with a home run of his own. And just like that, Blanton’s day was over. Giving up seven runs (six earned), five of which came home via the long ball.

Robert Coello entered the game in the seventh inning, and continued to struggle with getting hitters out. After two one out walks to Ortiz and Mike Napoli, Saltalamacchia hit his second home run of the game. This time it was a three-run job, giving the Red Sox a commanding 10-3 lead.

The Angels would push across two more runs in the eighth on J.B. Shuck‘s RBI single, but Joe Blanton happened, and the damage had already been done. The Angels lost 10-5, and their record on the season fell to 27-36.

The Angels travel south to Baltimore tomorrow to take on the Orioles. Jered Weaver gets the ball in the first game against Freddy Garcia. The Angels will be looking to not make Garcia look like Cy Young this time around. Game time is at 4:05 PM PST. Light up the fail-o, light it up extra bright. The Angels lost to the Red Sox.