Posted 4:21 PM by Sean
Sorry for the extended delay - I had to go out of town for a few days, and didn't have the time, energy, or access to post.

However, this does give me an excuse to take a break from this little exercise. All apologies to those of you who read regularly or semi-regularly, but there doesn't seem to be much to write home about, so to speak, when you look at the team the Angels are fielding these days. They're not going to be the worst team in Angels history, and they're not going to make the playoffs. They might, if they get hot, finish at or above .500, but that's just not enough drama to keep me going. I'll still be watching the games, and if something extraordinary happens I might comment on it, but as a day-to-day going concern, this blog is officially on hiatus.

In the meantime, let me recommend to you both The Monkey's Paw and Future Angels. If you're an Angels fan, and you're not reading them already, check them out now.

Thanks for reading.

Posted 3:53 PM by Sean
Last night, after Jarrod Washburn gave up a game-winning two-run homer to Frank Thomas in the bottom of the ninth, I said to myself "there's the first concrete example of something Scioscia's done that he wouldn't do during a pennant race. He wants to see Washburn pitch himself out of a jam in the late innings, and he wants Washburn to know that Scioscia trusts him to make the right decision about whether to walk a guy or pitch to him in that situation." What I didn't know until just now is that Washburn was apparently pitching hurt, so much so that he was having his back and hip realigned between innings.

That's crazy. I know, the guy had a no-hitter into the seventh. And he looked pretty good. And he only threw 101 pitches in those nine innings. But considering the number of guys out with injuries these days, and how pitchers especially tend to develop nagging injuries, and further considering the state of the starting rotation, if I were Mike Scioscia I'd be awfully cautious about extending an injured starter any further than necessary. With a judicious off-season move or two, this team will be right in the thick of things in 2004, but let's not complicate things by breaking the guy at the top of the rotation.

One of those judicious off-season moves will likely be signing Garret Anderson to an extension. For the others, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but I sure hope Stoneman is looking at some guys who can hit the ball. Either that or figuring out how they can play Detroit about 100 times next year.

Posted 3:45 PM by Sean
And now, a moment of silence as the Benji Gil era in Anaheim officially comes to a close.

Posted 9:23 AM by Sean
Ben Bolch's take on the Angels' sweep of the Tigers: the Angels "still have a faint pulse." Uh, whatever, Ben. Unfortunately, there are no less than five teams in the wild card race with stronger pulses, and two of them are 11 games ahead.

The sweep was nice, though. The Tigers have made a lot of teams look good this year, but scoring 25 runs in three games - even against the Tigers - allowed Angels fans to forget for a few days their seasonlong offensive woes. Scott Spiezio, Adam Kennedy, and Garret Anderson - who passed Brian Downing as the all-time Angels hits leader - all had a terrific series at the plate. Unfortunately, the Angels will need continued production from just about everyone in the order if they want to keep winning: the injury bug's latest victims are David Eckstein, Ben Weber, and Brendan Donnelly, none of whom are officially on the DL, but all of whom are likely to miss at least a few days. So now even the bullpen, which has been the Angels' only bulwark against injury in 2003, is crumbling.

Meanwhile, I did get to see one thing I've never seen before this weekend: a player take the field in a misspelled jersey. During Saturday's game, Adam Riggs made his second start for the Angels wearing "ANGEES" across his chest, and apparently didn't even notice until he came in to the dugout after the top of the first.

Anyway, here's the updated "ANAHEIM ANGELS 2003: THE DRIVE TO AVOID EMBARRASSMENT!" countdown:

3 wins to avoid 100 losses
8 wins to avoid matching their worst loss total
21 wins to finish at .500
12 Angels wins or Tigers losses to avoid the worst record in the AL
36 Angels wins or Rangers losses to avoid finishing last

Posted 12:56 PM by Sean
John Lackey stood on the Tigers' necks for eight innings last night before giving up a home run to Bobby Higginson to start the ninth. Lackey has struggled some this season - his first full season in the Majors - but it's encouraging to see him dominate a team, no matter how awful they happen to be.

The win is the Angels' third in a row, and fourth out of their last five. At this point, with forty games to play, they need:

5 wins to avoid a 100-loss season
10 wins to avoid matching their worst loss total (65-95 in 1980, 67-95 in 1968)
23 wins to finish at .500
Any combination of 16 Angels wins and Tigers losses to avoid finishing with the worst record in the AL
Any combination of 38 Angels wins and Rangers losses to avoid finishing last in the AL West

One step at a time. One step at a time.

Posted 5:18 PM by Sean
The Orange County Register is reporting that Glaus has a torn right rotator cuff and frayed right labrum, meaning that in all probability he's done for the year. Both he and Erstad should have whatever surgery they need as soon as possible, to ensure that they'll be healthy in time to start spring training next year.

And yes, for those of you who are wondering, I did see Rob Neyer's not terribly bright column blaming the Angels' woes this season on Darin Erstad. Or, actually, not quite; what he says is "...if you want to pinoint just one problem, it's obvious: Darin Erstad."

Now, Neyer has had a stick up his ass about Erstad for as long as I can remember, so it doesn't surprise me that he'd say something bad about him. What does surprise me - and it seems like Neyer's been doing this kind of thing a lot lately - is the sheer lack of sophistication on display. Looking at the Angels' season, why on God's green Earth would you pinpoint "just one problem?" There have been more than enough problems to account for a disappointing year, regardless of who was playing center field. Saying that Erstad is "the most to blame" is like saying that a guy who's been shot seventeen times actually died when he was hit by bullet number two. How is this Tinkertoy analysis worth a national audience?

And let's not forget that it's not Darin Erstad's performance in the field that's hurting the Angels - or, at least, not very much - because he hasn't actually been playing all that much. Assuming he doesn't return, he'll have finished the year with 258 ABs in 67 games. So here we have Rob Neyer taking the curious position that a team good enough to win the World Series became a subpar club largely due to a guy who didn't even play half of their games. How is that possible? Oh, it's his contract that's hurting the Angels, because they're paying him eight million a year and now can't afford to improve. But didn't this team just deliberately eat $15 million rather than keep Kevin Appier on the roster? Why, yes, Rob. They did do that. So maybe affordability isn't the question.

The cherry on top of the stupidity sundae, however, is this:

Maybe the Angels had to spend $32 million for the two-and-a-half months of Darin Erstad that helped them win the World Series.

But that seems to me like one hell of a price to pay.

Got that? Neyer thinks that if one concedes that the Angels had to pay Erstad that money in order to win the World Series, even so it's still too high a price!. $32 million over four years? For a World Series? Go ask George Steinbrenner if that's too much to pay, Rob. Or any other owner, for that matter.

Posted 11:50 AM by Sean
Last night's victory over the Chicago White Sox marks not just the first time the Angels have won a series since the All-Star break, it's the first time they've won two in a row since July 12-13 versus Minnesota. You know, back when they were in contention. A month ago.

Clearly, the story of the night was Scot Shields and his 7.2 innings of four-hit, one-run pitching. Lord, the guy is such a breath of fresh air compared to the other starters on any given night. He throws strikes consistently, but has terrific movement on his fastball. Even when he's off the plate he's always near the strike zone. He's now made three starts since replacing Appier in the rotation, and each time has pitched well. I was encouraged to see Mike Scioscia quoted as saying "[H]e's got great stuff. We're going to see if he can maintain it."

With the win, the Angels need just six more victories to avoid a 100-loss season. Beginning tonight, they have a three-game series with the Tigers, who at this point might as well move to a town called "Hapless," inasmuch as that particular adjective seems to prefix their name pretty routinely these days. David Eckstein is expected to return to the lineup after missing a few games with hamstring tightness.

Posted 5:39 PM by Sean
By now, you've probably heard that Derek Zumsteg and Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus have broken a story that Bud Selig intends to reinstate Pete Rose - technically, take him off the ineligible list - after this year's World Series. Rose would be eligible to hold any position in Major League Baseball except manager in 2004, but would be allowed to manage beginning in 2005. In return, Zumsteg and Carroll say, Rose will not be required to admit that he bet on baseball. In fact, Rose doesn't seem to be required to do much of anything; the agreement (which, they say, is in written form already and has been since last November) is essentially a complete capitulation to Rose.

Rob Neyer argues fairly convincingly that Rose will ultimately have to admit betting on baseball. There's simply too large, and too powerful, a group of people out there who think that contrition is a necessary precursor to forgiveness. But clearly that's a huge step for Rose, and not just because of his ego - remember, no official finding was ever made on whether Rose bet on baseball; he's on the ineligble list not for gambling but for engaging in acts that are detrimental to baseball. An actual admission that he did place wagers on MLB games during his playing and/or managing career gives MLB an ironclad reason to ban him permanently. And just saying that he's willing to admit it in the context of making a deal with Selig places Rose in a position of having to trust the Commissioner not to say "Aha! So you did bet on baseball!" Would that stand up in court? Of course not. But it's got to have occurred to Pete Rose, who probably is fairly paranoid about that kind of thing by this point. Which is why I think there may not be an actual, signed deal right now, and there may not be until the very end. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Rose will go into a room this November, sign a statement admitting that he bet on baseball, and simultaneously exchange that paper with the Commissioner for a copy of his reinstatement.

Posted 5:21 PM by Sean
Oh, and the Angels need eight more wins to avoid a (first-ever, kind of surprisingly) 100-loss season. The good news is that they still have games with Detroit, and the Tigers need eleven wins to avoid a 120-loss season. Ye gods.

Posted 3:08 PM by Sean
Must...post...must...ignore...pain...

So the Angels lost again last night, 10-4, following yet another crappy start from Ramon Ortiz, who has gone from gifted but erratic to just plain bad in the course of the last few weeks. That makes 64 losses for the season, one more than they had in all of 2002, with 43 left to play. They're 6-21 since the All-Star Break, Darin Erstad is on the disabled list and may be out for the season, Glaus had a setback during his rehab assignment and won't play for several more days, Eckstein has a strained hamstring, Percival very nearly blew a six run lead the other night, and Bengie Molina, God bless him, seems to spend more time clutching various body parts in pain than he does actually catching the baseball (that's not Bengie's fault, but it seems emblematic of the season).

Whee.

The Angels are in a bind. Obviously, 2003 is over for them, but they're still looking to capitalize on 2002, and cement relationships with the new fans they made last year. So Moreno, Stoneman, and even Scioscia continue to pay lip service to the idea that they can compete this year, when the reality is that the next couple of months are going to be an extended preview of some of the excellent prospects that have made their way through the Angels' farm system.

The funny thing is, though, that given the number of injuries the Angels have suffered, there's absolutely no practical difference at this point between "playing to win" and looking ahead to 2004. It's not like Chone Figgins, Robb Quinlan, et al. have been brought up to help Sciosica decide which will make the team next year, they're up because someone has to fill those roster spots. And the guys who are playing well at triple-A are the guys who would be promoted regardless of whether it's to help the current team or to audition for a 2004 slot.

Posted 5:05 PM by Sean
Both Darin Erstad and Adam Kennedy have cleared waivers, meaning that they can be traded to anyone until the end of August. Actually, it doesn't mean all that much - most players' names are placed on the waiver wire just to keep a club's options open, and inevitably some of them go unclaimed, so don't go thinking that Ersty and AK are gone just yet. Although I did hear the Yankees were sniffing around Erstad a while ago...

Posted 1:51 PM by Sean
You know, if this keeps up, I don't think the Angels are going to win their division.

Ha, ha. A little gallows humor, there.

Anyway, the Angels start that fabled month-long stretch of games against the Central tonight in Cleveland, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they can work their way back to .500 over the course of the next 25 games or so. That's actually a pretty tall order - they're currently seven games under - but inasmuch as it took them less time than that to go from six over to their current situation...well, whatever. How about we just lower our expectations to avoiding a 100-loss season?

Posted 1:02 PM by Sean
The Kansas City Star says that Kevin Appier "appears certain to sign" with the Royals, the Associated Press goes even further, saying that Appier will sign today and start at Tampa Bay this weekend, and the L.A. Times sources Appier's Agent, Jeff Borris, as saying that Ape will start for the Royals on Friday night.

The Royals will be paying less than $100,000 for Appier - presumably the prorated Major League minimum.

Posted 12:43 PM by Sean
Scot Shields's line from yesterday's loss to the Toronto Blue Jays:

5.0 IP, 9 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 91 TP

Shields started and finished shaky, but in between looked great. I was actually somewhat surprised that he pitched into the sixth; I halfway expected Scioscia to have him on a five-inning restriction for his first couple of starts, just to get him used to going out for that length of time. But he was obviously cruising at the end of five, and I can't say I wouldn't have sent him out for the sixth either. In any event, Shields put the first three batters on in the sixth (giving up one run), and Frankie Rodriguez almost got him out of it. My point is that Shields looked a lot more promising than his four earned runs in five innings would indicate, and the strikeouts were a nice bonus. I'm looking forward to his next start.

Oh, and the offense still sucks. Here's a list of runs scored in the Angels' most recent 10 games:

Zero. One. Five. One. Zero. Two. Two. One. One. Two.

At this point, the Angels are tenth in the American League in runs scored, and just one run away from being eleventh. During the 2002 regular season, the Angels finished fourth in the AL in runs scored, and were eight runs away from being second. Rex Hudler and Steve Physioc were lamenting Troy Glaus's absence during yesterday's game, but let's not forget that Glaus's offensive production had dropped off very steeply since the end of May or so. His OPS in June? .618. In July? .643. From May 25 through June 21, when he went on the DL, Glaus hit five home runs. These are not the numbers of an offensive messiah.

Still, there is some reason for hope - if not for this season, then for next. David Eckstein, Darin Erstad, Tim Salmon, and Troy Glaus have all played significantly worse than their career numbers this year, and at least two or three of them should improve next year. Garret Anderson is the only Angel currently having an insanely above-average year, and he may drop a little in 2004 - but he also had an insanely above-average year last year, so maybe he really is this good. And, if Bill Stoneman is to be believed, the Angels will "probably" be active in the free agent market next year, meaning that we could be chasing after a lot of pretty attractive targets, including Vladimir Guerrero, Carlos Beltran, or Brian Giles, to strengthen the offense even further.

So I'm hopeful. I'd just appreciate it if the L.A. Times would stop mentioning how far back in the standings the Angels are after every game. It's irrelevant, and everybody knows it.