OF Gary Matthews Jr.
OF/INF Robb Quinlan
Bobby Abreu is not a home run hitter and John Lackey is not an overpowering pitcher.
That's the Angels' story and they're sticking to it.
But just try convincing the Baltimore Orioles, who watched Abreu drive in four runs with a pair of homers and saw Lackey scatter four hits over eight innings to lift the Angels to a 5-2 victory Thursday at Angel Stadium.
"You know what kind of player you are," Abreu said. "My game is a line-drive hitter. I don't really try to hit homers. But whenever they come, very well."
They came in consecutive at-bats Thursday, giving Abreu 31 RBIs in his last 30 games. And that proved to be more than enough support for Lackey, who relied heavily on his fastball to set the Orioles down in order five times in eight innings.
"People look at velocity. I never really had much of it, honestly," said Lackey, who was consistent in the lows 90s all night. "That wasn't ever part of the deal."
Mixing your pitches and locating them is, however, and Lackey did both, throwing 73 of his 114 pitches for strikes.
"It's not a matter of overpowering guys," he said. "It's having guys in between. I have to throw just hard enough for them to chase my breaking stuff. And when they look for my breaking stuff, just hard enough to get it by them."
The Angels opened the scoring in the fourth when Abreu pulled a letter-high pitch over the wall in right-center.
Baltimore got that run right back in the fifth, though, when Lackey, who had retired 12 of the first 13 Orioles he faced, gave up two singles, a walk and a stolen base in the span of four batters.
