Hamilton Sends Angels Fans Home Happy With Walkoff Home Run

Free baseball has not been good to the Angels this year. They were 5-7 in extra inning games when this game ran passed the normal nine-inning mark. So you can imagine the worry that went over me. Or the apathy. At this point in the season, I can’t tell which is which anymore. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

The Angels didn’t get the same Garrett Richards that has been very good for them of late. He did strike out seven Astros in his six-plus innings of work, but it is the Astros after all. He also allowed five runs, one of which came home on a Chris Carter RBI double in the fifth that Collin Cowgill lost in the lights. That capped off a three-run fifth for the Astros that had effectively erased a Mark Trumbo solo home run in the second, Trumbo’s two-run triple in the third and Erick Aybar‘s RBI double in the third. It’s just been one of those seasons.

But with outs wasting away, and Phillip Humber on the mound in relief in the seventh, Aybar was at it again, when he singled home Mike Trout to the game up at five. Trout would have been out, but Jason Castro couldn’t hang onto Robbie Grossman‘s through.

A scoreless eighth, and a scoreless “infomercial for instant replay” ninth followed after that, setting up the stage for late night heroics. And with one out in the bottom of the tenth inning, Vernon Wells Josh Hamilton came through with a walkoff home run on a 0-2 curveball from Josh Zeid. Lighting off fireworks and pumping up a crowd waiting for a Beatles tribute band to take the field.

The series concludes tomorrow when the Angels send Jason Vargas to the mound against Brett Oberholtzer. Wow. What a name. Game time is at 12:35 PM PST. Light up the halo, after you dust off the cobwebs first.