With the NBA season coming to a close and the MLB season just starting, my favorite teams from their respective pro-leagues aren't exactly making me feel good about them.
With a resurgent season from Tim Duncan, Tiago Splitter much improved from last year, Tony Parker having his best statistical season, and Kwahi Leonard building on his rookie year, I thought Spurs could make it back the Conference Finals. Even their defense has been much improved over the recent past. But since the calendar changed to April, the Spurs have gone 3-4 and I'm beginning to have doubts.
The Spurs have won their three home games (Magic, Hawks, Kings), but lost the 4 away games (Grizzlies, Thunder, Nuggets, Lakers). Going back to last month, the Spurs have lost 6 straight road games (they lost to the Rockets and Timberwolves in March). This April swoon has cost the Spurs the #1 Seed in the playoffs.
I watched the game in LA vs the Lakers on Sunday. Duncan had another throwback game (23pts, 10 rebounds), but he got little help from his teammates. Leonard and Parker combines for 2-15 shooting. Parker may also have re-injured himself, sitting out all but 3 minutes of the 4th quarter. The Spurs still could have won the game, but the offense in the last several possessions was out of sync and missed three forced 3-pointers. With just under a minute left, they wasted 20 seconds just getting into their offense. Without Parker (and with Parker not playing well) the Spurs aren't the same offensively. They shot a sickening bad 37.1% from the field.
Their defense wasn't that much better, giving up open shots all night. Steve Blake took advantage of that, hitting 8-16 for 23 points. Despite the spotty defense, they did hold the Lakers to 36.5% shooting, but gave up 16 offensive rebounds.
Remember this was a Laker team that was playing without Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Angels are off to another slow start...deja vu from last season...and now they also have to deal with the loss of #1 starter Jered Weaver. Reports are saying he'll be out for a month after breaking a bone in his left arm diving off the mound to dodge a hot shot up the middle in Tuesday's game against the A's. Angels lost that game, 5-9 on the way to getting swept in a 3-game series at home. Angels also started the season losing 1-2 to both the Reds and Rangers. They finally got their first series win over the lowly Astros, 2-1, winning two straight after losing the opener. Astros have moved to the AL West this year and are tied with the Angels in last with a 4-8 record. Not exactly a great start for the Halos.
Slow starts by new comer Josh Hamilton and Mike Trout has hindered the offense and the starting pitching has been terrible. C.J. Wilson is leading the starting rotation with a 4.00 ERA...and now they will have to do without Weaver. At least it's Weaver's non-pitching hand which should mean he should be able to pitch effectively as soon as he's able to field his position. Garrett Richards, in his 2nd year in the Bigs, got the start on Saturday. He went seven innings and left the game down 4-1. Luckily the Angels managed to score 2 runs in the 8th and 2 more in the 9th for the comeback win. Pujols came up with the 2 RBI double with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th. At least Pujols is off to a better start than last year (.293, 2HR, 7 RBI).
Hamilton isn't hitting well (.234, 15 Ks), but at least got the power stroke going, hitting a homer in the Angels last two games. Trout is hitting .269 and has only 1 stolen base (he does lead the Angels in Runs with 8). The offense needs to get things going and fast...the Angels are already 4.5 games down to the AL West leading A's and they are likely not getting much help from the starting rotation.
I was already worried about the rotation with Weaver anchoring it. Now the Angels are going to have to slug their way to wins or it will be 4 straight seasons of missing the playoffs. Right now, I don't see any of the starters giving the Angels a chance at winning consistently in low scoring games (although Wilson and Tommy Hanson have the potential to do it every once in awhile).
I'm left wondering if the Angels would have been better off locking down Zake Greinke (Yea I know he's out with a broken collar bone, but if he was still in Anaheim he wouldn't have gotten into that fight). Would the Angels really be worse keeping Kendrys Morales and maybe trying Trumbo out in left. Sure he would be a liability on defense, but Trout and Peter Bourjos can cover a lot of ground.
Maybe this is just early overreaction on my part (I hope so). The Trout-Pujols-Hamilton-Trumbo line up still has the potential to put fear in opposing pitchers. If those four can get hot it will make me forget about how bad the starting pitching is right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment