I wish I woulda caught that game. Santana's long been one of my favorite Angels starters. His
Wikipedia entry notes:
In the pivotal Game 5 of the American League Division Series of the playoffs against the New York Yankees, Angels ace Bartolo Colón went out with a shoulder injury in the second inning. Santana filled in as the long reliever, and pitched 5-1/3 innings to earn his first playoff win in his first appearance.
Here's some video of the final out, at Fox News, "
Angels' Santana no-hits the Indians." And this one from Associate Press:
And at
Los Angeles Times, "
Angels' Ervin Santana throws a no-hitter against Cleveland Indians," and "
Ervin Santana's no-hitter should spark well-deserved interest in the Angels":
Baseball season challenges our attention span. It can be a 162-game drone. In Los Angeles, multiply that by two.
Before Wednesday, the Dodgers were a well-documented disaster, the stories more about loans and bankruptcy than wins and losses.
As for the Angels, most of the time they were more confusing than compelling.
You'd get solid pitching and little hitting, day after day. Texas went on a hot streak and the Angels seemed unable to close the gap. It was a team of Jered Weaver and Dan Haren, and had their last names rhymed properly it would have been the 2011 version of Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.
Then came Wednesday's bolt of lightning.
Ervin Santana threw a no-hitter at the Cleveland Indians. Not Weaver. Not Haren. Ervin Santana. It was done before lots of us on the West Coast had figured out what to order for lunch. The noon start in the East gave Santana and the Angels an entire day to dominate the sports headlines.
It was the kind of thing that can jump-start a team, and this is the kind of team that has needed a jolt for several months.
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