Things had started to get a little shaky lately with Angels pitching. But in Saturday night’s game, that wasn’t the case. Ervin Santana constructed a stable foundation to put a stop to the A’s earthquakes.

Santana pitched seven shutout innings of baseball with 10 strikeouts to shutdown A’s hitters early and the bullpen managed to keep them down for the victory with the final score of 4-1. This year, he has been lights out with Oakland, giving up pnly four runs in 27 innings pitched with a record of 2-0. His ERA against them is a stunning 1.48. Santana certainly seems to be living up to his All Star labeling.

Early in the game (the first inning to be exact) the Angels brought home two runs when Aybar crossed home on a wild pitch from third base and Howie hit a two-out single to drive in Torii. Juan Rivera also got an RBI single in the seventh inning and Vladdy in the ninth, despite not needing the extra support.

This win improves the division standings to five games over the A’s and also gives the Angels a much needed road win, in hopes that they can keep their title as the best road record in baseball.

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As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I was very lucky to be able to attend tonight’s game in Oakland. It was worth the 12 hour train trip from Anaheim. This stadium was very different than ours back home. The fans are quite noticeably more vocal than our rather docile Angels fans, but it was fun to find fellow fans and root and cheer with them as well. Of course we got our fair share of jeers and jokes from the livid A’s fans but that, in my opinion, that is all part of the fun of crossing enemy lines and waving your colors! Below are the pictures I actually took from the park.