Goodbye to all that 

Posted 4:54 PM by Sean
The Angels dropped the finale of their four-game set with Texas, which is disappointing. But if you'd told me going in that they'd take three of four and be guaranteed at least a tie for the division lead heading into Oakland, I'd have been doing the happy dance, so I'm not too upset - and I suspect the Angels aren't, either.

I didn't get a chance to see the game, but listened to most of it on the radio. It sounds as if Lackey was off, possibly because he was on short rest, and possibly because he's John Lackey, and this game was in Texas. Either way, the good news is that the bullpen horses got rested - Kevin Gregg and Ramon Ortiz were used in relief, with Gregg soaking up the vast majority of the pitches after Lackey left. Shields, Donnelly, Rodriguez, and Percival should all be available tomorrow.

One final note: if I were a Texas Rangers fan, I'd be damn proud of my team right now. Nobody gave them a snowball's chance in hell of doing anything more than finishing fourth at the start of the year. Most folks - including me - thought they lacked the starting pitching depth to contend this far, even after they were still in the mix through the summer. Given their incredible offense and a bullpen that's seemingly come out of nowhere, they're about two decent starters away from being a championship-caliber ballclub. Depending on what they do over the winter, this may be the team to beat in 2005.

But that's then, and this is now. It's time to go get Oakland.

On a related note... 

Posted 12:07 PM by Sean
Buster Olney has a breakdown of all the bullpens left in the hunt, ranking the Angels' as tops in the majors.

The pen is mightier than the sword, but damn, lay off already! 

Posted 10:51 AM by Sean
Given Scot Shields's pair of scoreless innings in relief last night, I hereby cease my wondering about why he was removed from Tuesday's game. However, it's undeniable that the four-man rotation has put some stress on the bullpen. Here's where we stand:

Donnelly threw 21 pitches last night and 24 the night before.

Shields threw 31 pitches last night and 18 the night before.

Rodriguez threw 42 pitches last night. He did not appear in either Monday or Tuesday's game.

Kevin Gregg threw four pitches last night, but is otherwise fresh.

Additionally, the Angels do have Ramon Ortiz and Aaron Sele in the pen for long relief, as well as Scott Dunn and Matt Hensley, neither of whom has pitched since September 22.

Lackey has gone at least six full innings in each of his last five starts, and has gone at least seven in three of those. In each of those five starts, he's given up either one or two runs.

Realistically, the goal this afternoon is to get Lackey through six, throwing around 90 pitches or so. If he's pitching well, however, a seventh or even eighth wouldn't be out of the question, since Lackey is the one Angels pitcher who will not throw again in the regular season unless there's a one-game playoff. I suspect that every reliever but Shields will be available if it comes down to it, but it would obviously be kind of nice to go into Oakland with those weapons primed and ready to fire.

Garbage in, garbage out 

Posted 10:38 AM by Sean
I've had myself a good, self-satisfied chuckle or three over Clay Davenport's quixotic attempt to predict the final standings (via Rob) by simulating the remaining games of the season a million times (as if that's going to iron out the errors that would show up in a paltry 100,000 simulations). A couple of days ago, the supposed odds on the Angels were a ludicrious 8% or so, and if you got those kinds of odds in Vegas you'd've been brain-dead not to snap them up. Today's batch of simulations put the odds at:

Angels - 47.23610%
A's - 52.76390%

The only problem is that Davenport apparently forgot to add last night's Oakland loss to the mix; he still has them as 89-68. Hence, while the A's currently have 69 losses with four to play, his simulation puts them as averaging 69.7 losses. Whassamatta, Clay, didn't have your coffee this morning?

Update: Oakland's won-loss record has now been fixed in the simulation. The new numbers give the computer Angels a 57.9853% chance of winning the division. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the division will continue to be won exactly once.

Gutting it out 

Posted 10:53 PM by Sean
The Angels pulled out another thriller tonight, 8-7 in 11 innings. Down by a run with two outs and nobody on in the ninth, Guerrero singled off of the previously nigh-untouchable Francisco Cordero. The next batter, Curtis Pride, cranked one off the wall in dead center, scoring The Monster and tying the game. In the 11th, with Erstad on first, Glaus and Cordero engaged in an at-bat for the ages, until finally Glaus knocked one out of the park. Percival gave back one of those runs in the bottom of the 11th, but in the end got Michael Young, who had earlier tied and broken the Rangers' single-season hit record, to ground to third to end it.

More tomorrow, but for now, the one bit of bad news to come out of the game is that Garret Anderson had to leave with an irritated patella tendon near his left knee. Hopefully this won't keep him out more than a game.

Oh, and another thing... 

Posted 3:36 PM by Sean
...The Monster took ball one in every single at bat last night. It was great. Sure, he could go back to waving at pitches two feet outside tonight, but for the moment I was reminded of the scene in Happy Gilmore where Adam Sandler's character, who is notorious for mammoth drives and a terrible short game, sinks a long putt.

"Happy learned how to putt!" he says. "Uh-oh!"

Two, two, two games in one 

Posted 1:50 PM by Sean
The difference between Monday's game and last night's 8-2 pasting of the Rangers wasn't just the difference between a hard-fought victory and a blowout. It was the difference between wild creativity and solid production; the difference between a novel that pushes the boundaries of literature and a well-thought-out business proposal. The former lives forever in our memories, but the latter's how you pay the bills over the long term.

I actually had a premium seat for last night's game - six rows back, one section to the first-base side of the plate. My wife, hallowed be her name, ponied up the ludicrious $55 they charge for that seat as a birthday present. I may be spoiled for upper deck seats now; the fairly small amount of foul ground behind the plate at Ameriquest Field meant that I could see the speed and break on every pitch even better than I could've if I'd watched it on TV.

So I was actually in pretty good position to see Escobar's pitches as he became the first member of the rotation to go on short rest. And I have to say that, initially at least, I was unimpressed. During his first time through the lineup, he seemed to fall behind hitters too often, and got a couple of outs on balls that were pretty much smoked right at someone. During his second spin through, though, he was nearly unhittable, finding his spots and changing speeds well. The Rangers got back on him a little by the time the sixth inning rolled around, but by that time the Angels had a comfortable lead. I think, all things considered, Scioscia pulled him at exactly the right time - six innings pitched, 80 pitches thrown.

Shields, in throwing two perfect innings of relief, was fantastic. He had the best movement on his pitches of anyone throwing last night, and, to be honest, I'd like to know why he didn't just finish up the game. Three innings is a bunch for a reliever, but Shields has certainly done it before, and had only thrown 18 in the first two. Instead, the Angels used Donnelly, who ended up throwing 24 pitches to get through just the ninth.

About the hitting, it was obviously nice to see so much offensive production. They took care of business, wrote the business proposal, covered their bases (so to speak), and closed the deal. Let me say this, however:

Vlad Guerrero is a monster.

Yeah, yeah, what else is new. But lookit: none of the home runs hit in last night were particularly in doubt. They all had the right sound and the right trajectory off the bat; there were no cheapies. But that second homer of Vlad's just shocked the crowd; there was a palpable sense that, even for a home run, that ball had been obliterated.

Perhaps the most interesting move of the night, though, belonged to Buck Showalter when he brought in Joaquin Benoit to pitch the final three innings of an 8-2 ballgame. I can only surmise that he was trying to hold the Angels down to give the Rangers' bats a chance, which is to some extent understandable. And the "hold the Angels down" part worked out, at least - Benoit threw three scoreless, albeit not brilliant, innings. The problem for the Rangers this presents is that Benoit had been scheduled to pitch against the Angels on Wednesday night. If you'll recall, Benoit had the Angels completely flummoxed two starts ago, September 18 in Anaheim. On that occasion, he went four innings, giving up two hits and no runs while walking three and striking out six. He had also pitched in Anaheim on July 27, going two innings and giving up no runs on three hits, walking none and striking out three. In fact, his lone run surrendered to the Angels this year was back on April 11. His 2004 numbers against the Halos:

8.0 IP, 1 ER, 7 H, 4 BB, 10 K

So, instead of facing Benoit, who apparently has their number this year, the Angels will draw Kameron Loe, the recipient of the Rangers organization's 2004 Nolan Ryan Award for minor-league pitcher of the year, who split most of this year between Double-A and Triple-A. I'm sure he's a talented guy, but that sounds like good news to me - although, of course, the Angels have a troubling history of hitting poorly off guys fresh up from the minors.

At this point, the Rangers are not mathematically eliminated. In addition to winning the rest of their games, they need the A's to lose both of their remaining games with Seattle, and for the A's and Angels to split their final three-game series - at which point the Rangers would be tied with whichever team won two of those three games. The speculation on the call-in show last night was, therefore, that if the Rangers manage a win tonight, and the A's lose to Seattle, the Rangers would bring Ryan Drese back on short rest for Thursday afternoon's game instead of starting Chris Young. This may be a case of pick your poison - Young dominated the Angels in Anaheim last week for six innings, while Drese, though Texas's best pitcher this year, got slapped around in his last start.

You gotta love the guy (a continuing series) 

Posted 1:22 PM by Sean
Troy Percival, on being ready to pitch for a fourth consecutive day:

"I told him I'm fine," Percival said before the game. "If it's a one-run game, and he needs [Brendan] Donnelly and Frankie [Rodriguez] in the seventh and eighth inning, throw me out there. I've got nothing to save for. I can drive my boat left-handed."

I dunno...I sure don't want to see the Angels locked into paying huge dollars for Percival for the next several years, and I think Rodriguez is clearly the future closer. And, of course, Percival wants nothing to do with being a set-up man. But the way he's pitched the second half of this season is going to make Stoneman's decision pretty damn tough. Probably the best-case scenario in terms of re-signing him would be to get Percival to agree to a two-year deal with a mutual option for a third, at something significantly less per year than the eight million he's getting now (say, $3-4 million per year), or a one-year renewal for $5 million or so. I doubt that either of those would tempt Percival into foregoing free agency, especially now that he's looking like he might be developing along the lines of a Nolan Ryan-type career path, but you never know.

I'll tell you one thing - the other night, as the Angels warmed up on the field, the Rangers' video board was showing an episode of "This Week in Baseball" that included a long feature on Percival. The entire pitching staff, and a lot of the position players, quit what they were doing and just stood there on the field in their warm-ups, their heads tilted back, watching.

But, you know, "makeup" and "leadership" don't really mean anything. Anybody can be a closer! The smartest minds in the game all say so!

Schya. And I'm a Chinese jet pilot.

One for the scrapbook 

Posted 10:30 AM by Sean
Man-oh-manimal. I'm still pretty damn tickled about last night's win.

The writeup of the day comes from the Orange County Register, which describes Colon as pitching "stoutly." As someone once said, that's not as easy as shooting fish in a barrel - it's as easy as looking at fish in a barrel.

A few impressions from last night's game: first, it's amazing how Angels fans have appeared at away games since 2002. For the first 32 years of my life, I was the only Angels fan I knew. Hell, I was the only Angels fan anyone I knew, knew. Of course, I lived in Atlanta, St. Paul, and Chicago, so it's not like I was all that close to Anaheim, but still.

Now, I go to games and see Angels fans all the time. Last night, there were at least six or eight within a couple of rows of us, including the couple right next to us. I don't know if the 2002 team made that many fans, or if it just made it okay to reveal yourself, but it's nice to see.

Second, the game attracted just over 20,000 paying customers. Okay, it was a Monday night, but the Monday before, the Angels had 39,074 in attendance when they played the also-ran Mariners. 20,000 people show up to watch a high-scoring pennant contender take on one of their division rivals in the last week of games? Shameful. And the excuse - that people were staying home to watch the Cowboys play the Redskins on Monday Night Football - is even more pathetic. Several of the people in my section were actually using their binoculars to watch the televisions in skyboxes, which were tuned to the MNF broadcast. These fans don't deserve October baseball.

Guerrero's homer in the second was a flat-out bomb. His next at-bat, he produced a little dribbler to the pitcher that probably traveled 25 feet. Sometimes you just shake your head and move on.

Kenny Rogers, man...that guy can either come back for one more year as a starter and get shelled, or move to the bullpen and be a left-handed relief specialist until he's 60. Erstad had no chance against him in any of his at-bats, and Anderson looked little better.

Bartolo Colon became the first pitcher to ever win six games in a season against the Rangers, finishing 6-0, with an ERA somewere around 2.20. Against that particular squad, that's pretty damn impressive. Whatever his struggles against other teams, he's almost single-handedly kept the Rangers behind the Angels in the standings. He was unquestionably studly last night.

I did, however, have to question Scioscia's judgment in bringing him out to start the ninth. Okay, truth be told, I kind of questioned his judgement in bringing him out to start the eighth. His pitch could was relatively low, it's true, but considering that he'll be starting on short rest in his next start, I kind of figured we'd see Donnelly in the eighth and Percival in the ninth. The flip side of that, of course, is that with EVERYONE starting on short rest starting tomorrow, the bullpen needed to be as fresh as possible, and of course Colon had been a dealin' fool ever since getting out of the fourth.

Figgins's slide to score the Angels' fourth run was brilliant. With one out and Figgins on third, Erstad grounded to Mark Teixeira at first. Figgins was off as soon as he saw it was a grounder, but I was sure he was a dead duck at home. Teixeira double-clutched for just a split second, then threw to Huckaby, but that split second was the difference. Figgins slid past the plate on the third-base side and reached back to tag it with his hand, avoiding the tag, and the Angels led 4-3. This, of course, was minutes after he tripled in the tying run, and an inning later he'd drive in Eckstein to make it 5-3. Nice game, Figs.

The Angels put the infield shift on for both Blalock and Teixeira. Blalock grounded into it in the third and lined into it in the sixth.

That bottom of the ninth...wow. Blalock and Young both had solid singles off Colon. Percival comes into the game and gives up another solid single to Teixeira, bringing up David Delucci with the bases loaded and nobody out, the winning run on first.

If you weren't watching last Thursday's A's-Rangers game, that may not mean much to you. But every Rangers fan watching was remembering that game, in which Delucci came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with two out, two on, and the Rangers trailing by a run, then lined a double into the corner to win the game. Facing Percival with the bases loaded and nobody out, this looked like another dramatic come-from-behind win for Texas. Even a pair of sacrifice flies would score the game.

So when Percival got Delucci to pop out, it was a big deal. But then he had to face Kevin Mench, who had homered in the fourth and came within a couple feet of doing the same in the seventh.

Again, a pop out on the infield.

And then, the strikeout of Brian Jordan. Three straight chances for Texas to tie or win the game with a hit, three straight harmless outs, courtesy of Troy Percival. I give you Mr. Percival's numbers since the All-Star break:

1.57 ERA.
15 saves in 16 opportunities.
23 IP
16 H
4 ER
6 BB
18 K
.193 BAA

That, my friends, is what you call a closer.

I'll be there again tonight, cheering for the Angels to get to Chan Ho Park early, and give Kelvim Escobar some of that run support he's been patiently wating for lo these many months.

Holy CHRIST, what a game! 

Posted 10:47 PM by Sean
We were lucky enough to be at tonight's game, a 5-3 victory over Texas that featured stellar pitching by Bartolo Colon and the bat and legs of Chone Figgins. Next to Game 7 of the 2002 World Series, this may have been the most exciting game I've ever been to. A Guerrero home run! A Figgins triple! A brilliant slide at the plate! Percival escaping from a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the ninth!

More tomorrow - I'm too wound up right now to do any fancy analyzin'. For the moment, let me just say this:

Woo!

Ranger reliever update 

Posted 1:25 PM by Sean
Here's the status of the Texas bullpen heading into tonight's game.

Carlos Almanzar, Doug Brocail, and Frank Francisco all dropped their appeals after having their suspensions reduced by a game apiece. Almanzar finished serving his suspension on Saturday, and is available, but has been experiencing tightness in his forearm. He did not pitch yesterday in Texas's 9-0 loss to Seattle.

Brocail began serving his suspension yesterday, and will be unavailable until Saturday, October 2. Francisco's suspension runs through the end of the season.

Four-man rotation 

Posted 11:14 AM by Sean
Scioscia has announced that the Angels will go with a four-man rotation for the rest of the regular season. Since they had an off-day Thursday, Bartolo Colon will be pitching on his usual rest tonight. Beginning with Kelvim Escobar's start tomorrow night, however, the Angels starters will be on three days' rest.

Guillengate! 

Posted 10:49 AM by Sean
Well, I guess Jose went and crossed the line, finally. As most of the baseball world knows by now, Jose Guillen has been suspended without pay for the rest of the season and any possible postseason appearances for his conduct after being removed for a pinch-runner in Saturday's game against the A's. I've still not seen video of what Guillen did, except for the obvious displeasure he displayed while still at first base, but it's described as:

Guillen threw his arms into the air at first base, walked slowly off the field, tossed his helmet toward the side of the dugout Scioscia was standing in and walked to the opposite side of the dugout before entering. He then fired his glove against the dugout wall.

Guillen has seemed to be walking a fine line for much of the season. When things were going well for him at the plate, he's appeared jovial and prankish; when he's struggling, he's been sullen and prone to pointless outbursts. Seeing Jose slam his bat to the turf in frustration after yet another pop-up has been one of the recurring images of this September. Obviously, judging Guillen based only on what you see on television or read in the papers is foolish. At this point, however, if Scioscia and Stoneman are saying that Guillen has been putting himself ahead of the team, I've got no problem believing it. This club is founded on the philosophy that the W is more important than anything else, and - at this time of year especially - the distraction of dealing with churlish displays like Guillen's is simply intolerable.

Is the punishment too harsh? Perhaps. There's no way to judge that without knowing what's gone on behind the scenes. But right now, the question is irrelevant. The Angels will put this behind them, just as they've put every setback they've had in the last couple of years behind them. If they lose one, you won't hear "if only we had Jose Guillen, we could've won that game," but "how are we going to use the pieces we have to win the next game?" That's the attitude that any team needs to win when the chips are down. If Jose Guillen is listening, and can take it to heart, he's got the talent to not just contribute, but lead.

In 2005.

Right now, the Angels will worry about the Texas Rangers, like the professionals they are.

Cold Comfort 

Posted 9:44 AM by Sean
Despite playing like a nine from the St. Anselmus' Home for the Retarded against Seattle, the Angels actually picked up a game against the A's, who were swept in Texas. Of course, this also puts the Rangers right back in the race, and more power to them, since they seem to be the only team left that actually appears to want to win the division. Thus, on the brink of what everyone assumed would be the first of two "showdown series" to decide the race, Anaheim is still two games back, just as they've been nearly every day this month.

Richard notes that the pitching matchups this weekend are fairly favorable towards the Angels. True enough, but only as far as it goes - which is back to last weekend, when the Angels dropped games that featured Escobar-Benoit and Washburn-Young matchups.

Still, I guess someone's gotta win these games. And I take some grim satisfaction in the fact that I was right at the beginning of the month when I predicted a drop-off in the Oakland offense. Let's revisit for a moment: on September 1, I looked at the impressive numbers the A's had put up - numbers well above their career norms in nearly every case - and concluded that

It's certainly possible that Oakland's offensive surge will continue unabated through September. Stranger things have happened. But you know, I think I remember reading something about teams like this tending to regre...regriss...ah, yes - regress to the mean.

Here are the numbers as they were at the end of August, and the numbers for September, of the A's players with at least 42 AB's this month:

Kotsay:
career - .284/.341/.422
through August 2004 - .305/.361/.448
September 2004 - .348/.402/.528

Scutaro:
career - .267/.304/.389
through August 2004 - .281/.305/.399
September 2004 - .190/.209/.310

Chavez:
career - .277/.353/.508
through August 2004 - .282/.402/.551
September 2004 - .218/.365/.308

Hatteberg
career - .272/.362/.418
through August 2004 - .307/.390/.458
September 2004 - .241/.323/.349

Durazo
career - .284/.385/.501
through August 2004 - .325/.392/.543
September 2004 - .290/.410/.406

Byrnes
career - .273/.335/.468
through August 2004 - .289/.347/.486
September 2004 - .269/.367/.397

Miller
career - .266/.333/.424
through August 2004 - .287/.352/.434
September 2004 - .200/.274/.255

So Kotsay has continued to outperform his career numbers, and everyone else has regressed towards the mean. In their 21 games in September, the A's have averaged 4.38 runs, compared to the 5.11 runs/game average they had posted through August.

Not that the Angels have performed much better, of course. They've scored a five more runs than the A's - five, coincidentally, being the very number of RBI by Adam Kennedy in the month of September - but the individual performances have been equally cringeworthy. I don't have the heart to go through it in detail, but let's just say that David Eckstein's .602 OPS for the month isn't even the worst in the starting nine. By more than a hundred points.

It should also be noted that the Angels have the toughest schedule ahead of them - six with Oakland, four with Texas (although didn't I just finish talking about how lame the A's are right now?). And, after this weekend, the final seven are on the road. Texas should theoretically be the best situated, with six against the Mariners and four against the Angels, and seven out of ten at home. All things considered, it probably wouldn't kill me to see the Rangers make it in on a strong finish, rather than the A's or Angels heading into the playoffs like a wall-eyed steer stumbling onto the killing floor.

Not good enough 

Posted 1:58 PM by Sean
Bengie Molina runs like a man with two broken feet wading through a river of fudge.

Dallas McPherson, Curtis Pride, Bengie Molina, you may cash your checks this week instead of giving them to the pitching staff. The rest of you, get back in the cage.

That is all.

That'll do for now 

Posted 10:42 AM by Sean
Like Richard, I'm disgusted. Beyond words. These assholes can play out the string without me watching until they prove they can hit pitchers of Joaquin Benoit and Chris Young's caliber.

Let it be remembered that, when the chips were down, the starting pitching came through and the bats choked. Anyone on that team not making their living on the mound should be ashamed to cash their paychecks this week.

Turning for home 

Posted 1:13 AM by Sean
So here's my theory: obviously, Bad Bartolo temporarily escaped from the two-dimensional "Superman II"-style prison in which he had been placed, and took the field before anyone could stop him. After the first inning, Good Bartolo and the other Angels lured him back to the prison with cheeseburgers and shot it back into space.

I was entertaining thoughts of turning the TV off and doing something worthwhile with my time, like learning Sanskrit, but stuck around knowing how bad Chan Ho Park is. I'm sure glad I did. Once Bartolo started pitching like he had a pair, he dominated in a way that's absolutely worth the money the Angels are paying him, provided he can do it again a few dozen more times over the next three years. Plus, we saw timely hitting and power in the same game! Hopefully, Guillen's homer will jump-start him a little bit, but two from Vlad and one from Glaus wasn't too shabby.

Meanwhile, the A's went down in flames, blowing a 3-1 lead after Ken Macha pulled a cruising Barry Zito after six.

As noted earlier, tomorrow's going to be a tough day. But it was nice to start the series this way.

Rangers suspensions announced 

Posted 5:20 PM by Sean
Okay, here's the scoop:

Pitcher Frank Francisco has been suspended for the remainder of the 2004 championship season, but no less than 16 regular season games in the event of an appeal, and fined an undisclosed amount for his highly inappropriate actions and reckless disregard for the safety and well-being of the fans. Unless appealed, Francisco's suspension is scheduled to begin tonight.

Doug Brocail has been suspended for seven games and fined an undisclosed amount for his inappropriate actions and inciting a bench-clearing incident, while pitcher Carlos Almanzar has been suspended for five games and fined an undisclosed amount for his inappropriate actions during the incident. Unless appealed, Brocail's suspension is scheduled to begin tonight and Almanzar's is scheduled to begin on Saturday, September 25.

This more or less forces the Rangers to decide whether they want to lose Francisco's services during a pennant drive, or lose them at the start of a fresh season. To me, this is no choice at all - the Rangers aren't in a pennant drive, they're done. If it were me, I'd serve Francisco's sentence without appeal and be grateful it's not longer, and I suspect the Rangers will do so (while making noises about how "this team isn't just one guy," etc.) This would be advantageous for the Angels, since they have seven games left with the Rangers, while the A's have only three.

If Brocail begins his seven-game suspension tonight, he would be eligible to return the day Almanzar's began (there's an off-day in there). So the Rangers would be without him during their three-game series with Anaheim and their three-game series with Oakland. Almanzar's five-game suspension would be comprised of the Rangers' Saturday and Sunday games with Seattle next weekend, and the first three of their final four games with Anaheim. This would again be an advantage for the Angels, as Almanzar would miss no games against Oakland. In essence, while Oakland would play three games against the Rangers minus Francisco and Brocail, Anaheim would play three against that configuration plus three against the Rangers minus Francisco and Almanzar. Now, whether that's better than playing Seattle - which the A's will be doing - is certainly debatable, but it's certainly not debatable that, if these suspensions are served as ordered, six of the Angels' last sixteen games just got easier, while only three of Oakland's did.

We should know the Rangers' decision on the appeal before gametime tonight.

Update: Dallas radio KRLD, which broadcasts the Rangers games, is reporting that all three players will appeal.

More good news? 

Posted 2:46 PM by Sean
According to Buck Showalter, he expects to hear today or tomorrow that "three or four" of the Texas relievers will be suspended for participating in the scrum with fans in Oakland this week. The article notes that they suspensions could be appealed, but that such a move would push back the days served to the end of the season (and, I'm guessing, possibly into 2005, which they'd want to avoid). Depending on the timing, this could help or hurt the Angels in their quest to catch Oakland.

It's time 

Posted 10:34 AM by Sean
Neither the Angels nor the A's looked like the particularly wanted to win a division title this week. While the Angels split their series with the Mariners in Seattle, the A's split theirs with Texas at home. So the Oakland lead remains at two, with sixteen to play. The Angels should have been able to pick up at least one game during the last four, but they didn't, and it's hard to say they're done when the lead could be chopped in half on any given night.

Certainly the most perplexing, frustrating, and problematic aspect of the Seattle series was the sudden lack of offense against pitchers who were, shall we say, underperforming. Over the last three games of the series, the Angels scored four earned runs on fifteen hits. The gruesome numbers from those games:

Eckstein - 3 for 12 - .250
Erstad - 2 for 11 - .182
Guerrero - 1 for 9 - .111
Anderson - 2 for 12 - .167
Glaus - 1 for 10 - .100
Guillen - 1 for 11 - .091
Figgins - 1 for 10 - .100
Molina (playing in Tuesday and Wednesday's games only) - 1 for 7 - .143

So, out of eight regular players, we've got one hitting .250, six on the Interstate, and one playing bingo. Only Adam Kennedy has had a stick since Tuesday, going 3 for 7.

Obviously, that has to change. And it will, since this team has some offensive talent. The problem is, it has to change right now.

There's a little good news headed into the Texas series, however. First, the pitching matchups look like this:

Friday - Chan Ho Park (3-5, 5.72) at Bartolo Colon (15-11, 5.12). Park is terrible, and we've seen Good Bartolo a couple of times in a row - plus Colon's owned the Rangers this year, going 4-0 with a 1.67 ERA against them.

Saturday - Juan Dominguez (1-2, 3.91) at Kelvim Escobar (10-10, 3.86). This matchup actually scares me. Dominguez isn't the answer to the gaping holes in the Texas rotation this year, but he has the potential to develop into a fine starter, and the Angels have never seen him before. This has "no run support for Kelvim" written all over it, which I say with the sincere hope that I'll look like a fool on Saturday night. But Escobar has been the Angels' most reliable starter this year, and the Angels should be in this one until the end.

Sunday - John Wasdin (2-4, 6.71) at Jarrod Washburn (11-7, 4.73). I give Wasdin credit for managing to stick around the majors for nine years despite posting a career 5.36 ERA as a right-handed pitcher. If the offense can't produce here, it's going to be ugly.

These are, in fact, just about ideal matchups for Anaheim. No Ryan Drese or Kenny Rogers for Texas. No John Lackey, Ramon Ortiz, or Aaron Sele for Anaheim.

Additionally, Alfonso Soriano looks likely to miss the series (and possibly the rest of the season) due to an injury sustained in yesterday's game against the A's. I'm not sure how much this will slow down the Rangers' attack, since they're extraordinarily deep offensively, but Soriano had hit in twelve of Texas's last thirteen games, including hitting four home runs.

Meanwhile, here are the probable starters for the Oakland-Seattle series, in Seattle:

Friday - Zito (11-10, 4.44) at Meche (5-6, 4.92)
Saturday - Hudson (11-5, 3.36) at Baek (1-3, 7.13)
Sunday - Redman (10-12, 4.94) at Madritsch (5-2, 3.03)

Saturday's game should be a lock for the A's, but both Friday and Sunday feature Seattle pitchers who've been on fire recently against Oakland pitchers who've been inconsistent all season. Those games could go either way.

The pieces are in place. The Angels need to go for the kill. It's time to step on some necks.

At least they won SOMETHING yesterday 

Posted 9:50 AM by Sean
In the event of a tie between Oakland and Anaheim for the A.L. West, the one-game playoff will be played at Angel Stadium.

Milestone update 

Posted 4:23 PM by Sean
Sometime during the Angels' series with Texas this weekend, Garret Anderson should catch and pass Brian Downing as the Angels' all-time leader in at-bats. Anderson currently has 5842, and needs just 12 more to equal B.D.'s 5854.

G.A. is under contract for the next four years. Assuming he stays reasonably healthy and in Anaheim, by the end of that time he will pretty much own the Angels' record book, at least in terms of the "longevity stats." He currently holds the record for hits and doubles, and can be expected to grab the following honors as well (in addition to at-bats):

Games played - currently in third with 1462; record held by Downing with 1661 (Salmon in second with 1596). Projected record date: Summer, 2006.

Plate appearances - currently in third with 6189; record held by Downing with 6912 (Salmon in second with 6795). Projected record date: Spring, 2006.

Runs scored - currently in third with 756; record held by Salmon with 956 (Downing in second with 889). Projected record date: Spring, 2007.

Total bases - currently in second with 2798; record held by Salmon with 2863. Projected record date: Spring, 2005.

Home runs - currently in third with 206; record held by Salmon with 290 (Downing in second wtih 222). Projected record date: Summer, 2008.

RBI - currently in second with 940; record held by Salmon with 989. Projected record date: Spring, 2005.

If you live near the stadium, go on out this weekend and see history get made.

Trivia, Trivia 

Posted 10:50 AM by Sean
The Angels' 5-1 victory over the Mariners last night moved the club to 82-61, guaranteeing them a winning season. The 2002 team went 99-63; the current squad would need to go 17-2 from here on in to match that.

So far, the Angels are 39 games over .500 counting from the start of the 2000 season. Counting from the start of the 1994 season, they are exactly at .500.

On to more important things: by and large, last night was a good game for the Angels - any win now qualifies as a "good game" - though it's starting to get to the point that an Anaheim win without an Oakland loss is making me hear "tick tock" sounds. Yes, they've got six left with the Athletics. But that last road stretch - four in Texas, three in Oakland - is going to be brutal. It may be imperative to be at least tied, and preferably a game or two ahead, before going in to that. In which case, the Angels may need a sweep of the A's during their series in Anaheim.

A couple of things concerned me. I thought Shields looked a little shaky, a little less crisp than he usually does. And Casey Kotchman is not going to make any significant contributions to this club, at least not this year. Darin Erstad is apparently suffering from back spasms, and is day-to-day, but the Angels will need him back ASAP. I missed seeing Kotchman's single, but in his other at-bats he looked totally overmatched, and he made at least two mental errors at first base. Since the Mariners are starting a lefty tonight, Scioscia has indicated that he might start Andres Galarraga at first if Erstad is not available.

After Rodriguez finished taking care of business in the ninth, I flipped over to catch the end of the Rangers-A's game, just missing the brouhaha in the bullpen. The Rangers' broadcast team was studiously avoiding replays, despite the fact that the delay in the game lasted longer than the reign of the Emperor Constantine, but my understanding is that Frankie Francisco threw a chair at a heckler, hitting a woman and breaking her nose. The general consensus seems to be that Francisco should be suspended, which I'm certain will be the case, though I also think it's a little out there to pretend like ballplayers should be expected to take any abuse without reacting. They're human, folks, and in an unprotected environment like the 'pens at Network Associates Coliseum, things can get downright scary. Remember when Robbie Alomar spat at Hirschbeck, and how everyone treated it as an unforgivable sin? Supposedly, though, Alomar was reacting to Hirschbeck calling him a "whining spic," which somehow almost never made it into the story. If you can't spit at a racist, I don't know what kind of world we're living in.

(NOTE: I have no idea what Hirschbeck called Alomar, if anything. As far as I know, that's never really been resolved, nor does it matter. The point is that there are times when you need to know what happened on both sides before you start up with the righteous wrath).

Of course, throwing a chair into a crowd is a much more irresponsible act than hawking a loogie at the specific guy you've got a problem with while he's standing by his lonesome, and I completely agree that Francisco deserves to be punished. But I also know that, if I knew what provoked him, I'd probably sympathize a little.

Anyway, the Rangers managed to blow the game a couple of times, thanks to some of the most comically terrible late-inning pitching and defense I've ever seen. So we're where we were yesterday - two back of Oakland. For what it's worth, Boston's lead in the wildcard is 4.5; they start a set with Tampa Bay today.

Oh, that'll be fun 

Posted 9:23 AM by Sean
The Angels may give Sele another start.

"His stuff was as good as it's been in five years," Manager Mike Scioscia said of Sele's last start, a 1 2/3 -inning appearance Saturday against the Chicago White Sox in which he allowed eight runs — four earned — and six hits. "That's what encourages us."

Uhm...o-kay...

Not that the alternatives are much more appetizing. Ortiz? We've been over that ground. Gregg has been unreliable. Scioscia is described in the article as "reluctant" to use Shields as a starter because of his importance to the bullpen, which is understandable, but with Scott Dunn and Matt Hensley now on the expanded roster, there's a little more flexibility down there. I think Shields is needed more to take the ball every fifth day than to pitch middle relief right now.

Hmmmm... 

Posted 6:15 PM by Sean
Is it just me, or is it true that every time Rob writes off the Angels, something like this happens?

The Angels put a serious hurting on the White Sox this afternoon, good to see after they completely imploded against them last night. Good Bartolo showed up. Actually, Pretty Excellent Bartolo showed up. The offense rocked and stomped. Balls were caught, except by Guillen, who apparently needs another talking to. Overall, however, the team looked about five times better than last night's edition.

From here on in, it's Western Division foes, starting with four in Seattle beginning tomorrow.

Blogging the Enemy 

Posted 3:44 PM by Sean
I was sure that last night was destined to be another of those games in which the offense just never gets it together; that the Angels were going down 2-0 or 3-1. But Vlad cranked one, GA picked up Frankie, and the A's feel to the Tribe in extras. This morning, the Angels site one game out, in striking distance.

Tonight, Aaron "Lesser of Two Evils For Now" Sele starts against Chicago's Jason Grilli. At the moment, though, Oakland and Cleveland are on the teevee, C.C. Sabathia versus Rich Harden. Sabathia's looking pretty good at the moment - he's pitched out of trouble once or twice, and seems to have his good stuff. Harden is also looking pretty good, though he's given up a couple of doubles and trails 1-0 in the bottom of the third. I'll be updating this post as events in this game unfold, an experiment I'll probably repeat several more times before the end of the season.

Bottom 3rd: Sabathia puts runners on first and second with one out, but gets Byrnes to pop out to the catcher and Chavez to fly out to right.

Top 4th: Vizquel flies out to center. Lawton, who has the only Cleveland RBI so far, pops up in foul territory to Chavez. Harden works a 1-2 count to Martinez pitching in and down, then gets him swinging with a fastball on the outside corner for the third out.

Bottom 4th: Hatteberg gets ahold of an inside pitch, but is tied up a little bit and ends up driving it to the warning track, where it's snagged by Gerut. Sabathia tries a first-pitch fastball to Miller over the heart of the plate, and Miller promptly swats it into center for a single. Durazo walks on four straight pitches, each of them just missing various bits of the strike zone. Sabathia works Crosby up and down in the strike zone, striking him out on a fastball down the middle, a fastball low in the strike zone, and - Crosby's only swing - a fastball at the shoulders. Swisher walks on four straight balls, loading the bases. Sabathia starts Scutaro with a breaking pitch, inside. Another breaking pitch is taken for strike one. A fastball is fouled away. Another fastball is taken high and away. Another foul. Another high ball. At 3-2, Scutaro lifts a fastball into left field, where Lawton comes in and catches it on the run. The A's strand three, score none.

Top 5th: Hafner works a walk, making Harden throw 10 pitches. Blake grounds a 1-2 breaking pitch to short, and the A's turn a textbook 6-4-3 double play. Harden issues another walk, putting Broussard on. Belliard drives Harden's first pitch to deep center, but Kotsay catches it at the wall. Halfway home, it's still Cleveland 1, Oakland 0. Harden's thrown 80 pitches.

Bottom 5th: Sabathia, meanwhile, starts the home half of the 5th having thrown 74 pitches. The later Sabathia can go, the better; Cleveland has the worst bullpen in the league. He cruises through Kotsay and Byrnes, getting the former to fly out and the latter to ground to third. Chavez draws a walk; Sabathia appears to want nothing to do with him. After throwing ball one to Hatteberg, Sabathia gets a visit from pitching coach Carl Willis, and appears to be quite animated in telling Willis to quit worrying and let him pitch. After throwing another ball to Hatteberg, he blows two fastballs past him, then moves to 3-2 with an off-speed pitch that's a little bit high. Sabathia comes back with another fastball low in the zone, which is again grounded to third. Sabathia pitch count: 90.

Top 6th: Harden appears to be working primarily off his breaking stuff, slipping fastballs in from time to time to keep the hitters honest. He gets Gerut on a high 3-2 fastball that would have been ball four. Crisp shows bunt on the first pitch, a ball, but isn't fooling anyone. Harden doesn't even give him a fastball for the next pitch, laying a breaking ball in for a called strike. Gerut grounds a 2-2 pitch to short. Vizquel makes a serious attempt to bunt early in the count, then reconsiders when the count hits 2-1 and ends up lining a 2-2 pitch - Harden's 100th - to right for a single. The A's bullpen gets busy, but Vizquel takes off on an 0-1 pitch and is thrown out by approximately a thousand feet for out 3. Harden pitch count: 102.

Bottom 6th: Sabathia gets Miller to fly out to right, Durazo to hit a sky-high pop-up that's taken by second baseman Ronnie Belliard, and Crosby to fly out to Crisp in center, all early in the count. He throws a total of seven pitches. Sabathia pitch count: 97.

Top 7th: Harden remains in the game, and Lawton greets him by smoking his first pitch through the right side of the infield for a single. The A's leave Harden, a right-hander, in to pitch to the switch-hitting Martinez, a home run threat. Harden's breaking pitch seems to have lost some crispness. Martinez gets a good pitch to hit on 2-0, but gets under it a little and hits a fly ball into foul territory, a few steps out of the range of Swisher. Rincon and Mecir are warming up. Martinez takes a low fastball and strokes it into right for another single, putting runners on first and second with nobody out. Harden remains in to face Hafner, a lefty. He misses with the first pitch, hangs the second, and Harden hits it to San Jose to give the Indians a 4-0 lead. Macha comes to get him.

The A's make that Nextel Direct Connect Call to the Bullpen (tm) for Jim Mecir, whose breaking pitches (a screwball, primarily) looks a heck of a lot better than Harden's did. Blake goes down on strikes, but Broussard does a fine job of putting that screwball into right field for a single. The A's announcers begin to talk about how they're "due" for a comeback against Cleveland, a theory of statistics that Billy Beane may wish to discuss with them some time. Mecir gets a little cutesy with his pitches and goes 3-0 on Belliard, but retires him a moment later when Byrnes manages to catch a foul ball that would have gotten out of play in just about any other stadium. Mecir is removed in favor of Rincon as Gerut comes to bat. That's right, the left-handed reliever is brought in to retire the lefty batting ninth, not the one batting fifth with home run power. Rincon retires Gerut on a pop up to the catcher. It takes one pitch.

Bottom 7th: Sabathia remains in the game. He starts Swisher with two balls, then gives up a single scalded through the left side of the diamond. Scutaro does the exact same thing on the very next pitch, a mirror-image situation of Cleveland's half of the inning. Willis returns to the mound for a conference, in which Sabathia appears significantly more subdued. Kotsay shows bunt on the first pitch and takes strike one, then pops the second pitch to Gerut in left. The lefty Sabathia throws a pair of balls low and inside to the righty Byrnes, then misses wide. The 3-0 is a strike at the knees. The 3-1 is the same, but fouled back. Byrnes takes an underpowered breaking pitch for ball four, loading the bases for Chavez with one out. Sabathia remains in. Chavez is a lefty, but is hitting left-handed pitchers at above .300 this year. He fouls the first pitch off, then chops the second off the infield. Belliard makes a fine play to field the ball and throw out Chavez, but the first Oakland run scores from third. Hatteberg stands in against Sabathia and rips one down the right-field line for a bases-clearing double to make it 4-3. After 113 pitches, Sabathia is removed for a relief pitcher.

Rafael Betancourt enters the game to pitch to Miller. Miller pops the first pitch up to third, ending the inning. It's a battle of the bullpens now.

Top 8th: Crisp starts the eighth by singling to right off Rincon. Vizquel is looking to sarifice him over, but misses one and fouls one off. He pops a 1-2 pitch up in foul terrirory, taken by Chavez. Rincon becomes obsessed with Crisp at first, throwing over a few times and looking him back a few more. Crisp goes nowhere for the first two pitches to Lawton, then takes off on a 1-1 count and barely beats out a good throw from Miller. Lawton's at-bat runs to 3-2, when he's rung up on a checked swing. Eric Wedge barks at the umps from the Cleveland dugout, but Lawton went and knows it. Victor Martinez comes to the plate, this time hitting from the right side against the lefty Rincon. Rincon works carefully to Martinez, knowing he has a more favorable matchup against Hafner and that first base is open, but Martinez ends up popping up a low fastball to Crosby at short for the third out.

Bottom 8th: Bob Howry comes in to start the eighth for Cleveland, pitching to Durazo. Howry blows an inside fastball past him for a (taken) strike three. He misses with a pair to Crosby, then Crosby, sitting on a fastball, gets exactly that and parks it in the left-field seats to tie the game. Howry calmly returns to work against Swisher, goes 2-2 on him, and then hangs one that Swisher swats into the right-field seats. The A's take the lead, 5-4. Howry remains in, and induces a grounder from Scutaro back to the mound for a 1-3 groundout. Kotsay takes two balls, then lines a single into right, chasing Howry. Jason Davis, one of Cleveland's less-than-stellar performers, enters the game to face Byrnes, throws one pitch, then picks Kotsay off first to end the inning.

Top 9th: Octavio Dotel enters the game for the A's. Dotel has been notso-hotso against lefties this year, but gets Hafner to pop up to short on the first pitch. Dotel works Casey Blake inside-out and gets him swinging. Broussard hits a looper on Dotel's first pitch that Chavez catches over his shoulder, on the run, and the A's win, 5-4.

Well, crap. The Indians had that one in their gloves, and it popped out. Oakland's lead is now 1.5 games, pending tonight's Angels-White Sox game.

As for this inning-by-inning blogging, it's funny - I don't think I could do it for an Angels game. I'm way too focused on actually watching those games to spend this much time transcribing the action.

If you don't have anything nice to say... 

Posted 3:35 PM by Sean
I'm not exactly tickled pink about losing two of three to the Blue Jays, but, for now, I'm looking at them as back-to-back oddball losses. The first was lost because Guerrero lost a ball in the gloaming, and the Angels couldn't score a run in nine innings. The second was lost because Washburn's wheels fell off for five batters. These aren't good things, but I don't think they're necessarily indicative of what's to come.

They're going to have to play pretty damn well this weekend, though. A lot rests on Lackey's shoulders tonight; the White Sox are putting Jon Garland out there and, while Garland's having a tough year, he's fully capable of stepping up. Meanwhile, the A's throw Mark Mulder against Scott Elarton, which shouldn't be much of a contest.

We should start seeing information about potential tiebreakers soon. As a quick recap:

- If Oakland and Anaheim tie, and both teams have better records than the 2nd place team from the East, the tie is broken based on head-to-head winning percentage, and then intradivision winning percentage, and then a bunch of other stuff that doesn't involve a one-game playoff.

- If Oakland, Anaheim, and the 2nd place team from the East have identical winning percentages, the A's and Angels would play a one-game playoff to determine the division champion. The loser of that game would play the 2nd place team from the East to determine the wild card, thus getting a second bite at the apple, as it were.

- If Oakland and Anaheim tie, and both teams have worse records than the 2nd place team from the East - which seems the most likely of the tie scenarios - they would play a one-game playoff at a site yet to be determined.

It's too soon to be talking about this, of course, but what the hell. Last year, MLB posted the sites for the tiebreaker games on September 11, but this year the season lasts a few days longer. We should hear something early next week, I'd guess.

Meanwhile, over at the Orange County Register, there's a story pointing out the fact that Joe Maddon is a likely candidate to manage a team next year. I'm pretty sure I've heard that one before, but it wouln't surprise me.

Shouting Distance 

Posted 2:04 PM by Sean
Ah, Good Bartolo. How I've missed you.

A few random thoughts from last night's game, a 5-2 victory over Toronto:

* Bengie Molina caught Colon for the first time in several months. Nobody seemed to mind.

* Troy Percival is suddenly effective again, at least against the less-threatening offenses in the league. He's throwing a lot more off-speed stuff, and managing to get guys out with it. Cool.

* Jose Guillen returned to the lineup after being out for several days. His ailments apparently extend from carpal tunnel syndrome to neck, shoulder, back, and leg soreness, for which he's seen Bartolo Colon's personal trainer / physical therapist. Ordinarily, I'd say that seeing Bartolo Colon's personal trainer is a bit like seeing Ken Lay's accountant, but Colon pitched well last night, so he gets a pass today.

* Frankie Rodriguez got his 110th strikeout on the season, a new Angels record.

In other news, the Angels gave Ben Weber his unconditional release, making him a free agent.

Oh, and the Red Sox beat the A's last night. You might say they chewed Redman and spit him out, if you were inclined toward smokeless tobacco puns. In any event, the A's lead is down to 1.5 games, with these on tap for today:

Toronto at Anaheim (Miller at Escobar), 10:05 p.m. - The Angels need to keep the pressure on tonight. They're heavily favored by this matchup, and Escobar has been more than pleased to throw well against his old club in the past, so it should be a matter of execution tonight. Miller is terrible against lefties (.361/.448/.602), so look for good things from Erstad, Anderson, and Kennedy. Defensively, as long as Escobar's not pitching to Delgado with runners on too frequently, they should be okay.

Meanwhile, Boston and Oakland wrap up their three-game series with a Hudson v. Martinez matchup. This could turn out to be a classic, the A's struggling to avoid a sweep at home, the Red Sox looking to keep the pressure on the Yankees. Hudson's having a better year than Martinez, and has a real home-field advantage in Oakland against him. Boston has the best offense in the league, however, so Martinez will hopefully be able to focus on going after hitters and getting deep into the game without worrying too much about a run here or there.

News from the Territories 

Posted 1:55 PM by Sean
With the minor-league regular season now over, the Angels' farm teams at Provo (Rookie), Cedar Rapids (low-A) and Rancho Cucamonga (high-A) have all qualified for their league playoffs. Congratulations and good luck to them all.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? 

Posted 1:01 PM by Sean
If one doesn't consider the Red Sox games, the Angels have won thirteen of their last fourteen. It was great to see them shake the dirt of Fenway Park off of their spikes and sweep Cleveland.

And that play...man.

Top of the eighth, with the Angels clinging to a 2-1 lead. Lackey's pitched well, but is tiring, and gives up a leadoff double to Ronnie Belliard. Matt Lawton then grounds out to first, advancing Belliard to third. Scioscia removes Lackey, and the ESPN cameras catch Lack angrily saying "Goddammit!" as he sees Scioscia heading towards him. The Angels need a strikeout, however, and so it's Frankie Rodriguez in relief.

It quickly becomes apparent that Rodriguez has his A-plus-plus stuff. His breaking pitches are untouchable, 2002 ALCS good. He strikes out Omar Vizquel on three consecutive pitches to record the second out and remove the possiblity of a sacrifice, then quickly throws two strikes past Travis Hafner. As Rodriguez begins his delivery of what must surely be strike three, Molina shifts up in his crouch and I scream "block the pitch, Bengie!"

Sure enough, the ball breaks down and out of the strike zone. Hafner checks his swing in time, and the ball bounces, ricochets off of Molina's shin guard, and rolls about twelve feet to the third-base side of the plate. Belliard, who has a good lead, breaks for home.

Molina reaches the ball, grabs it, and flips a no-look toss over his shoulder to Rodriguez, who has hurtled plateward from the mound. Belliard begins his slide. Rodriguez slides in front of the plate, knocking Belliard to the side, catches the ball, reaches under his own leg, and applies the tag. Belliard never touches the plate, and is the third out of the inning. Joe Morgan is heard to say "Wow! Oh, wow!"

I know, I know. You know all this already. I don't care.

Anyway, Rodriguez retired the side in order in the ninth, preserving the Angels' sweep of the Indians. After yesterday's off-day, the Halos head into the last of their interdivisional games tonight - they'll have three with Toronto, three with Chicago, and then head to Seattle for the beginning of interdivisional play.

It's fairly obvious at this point that the Angels' best chance at the postseason this year will be the division title. Dropping three games to Boston dealt a severe blow to their wildcard chances; Boston has eight games remaining with teams that are over .500, while Anaheim has sixteen. Additionally, of course, the Angels have six games left with Oakland, and none left with Boston.

That suits me fine. There may be some Angels fans who are ambivalent about the Boston-Oakland series going on right now, but, as for me, I'm cheering every time Manny and Ortiz go yahd. After the A's loss last night, the Angels moved to within two games in the loss column.

Tonight's games:

Toronto at Anaheim (Dave Bush at Bartolo Colon), 10:05 pm ET - If Colon can find the strike zone, he should be able to go after most of the lineup and work around Delgado. Bush is having a fine rookie season, and the Angels will be able to use Jose Guillen if he can return tonight. The Angels have a huge bullpen advantage, so as long as Colon can limit the Blue Jays to four or fewer runs in the first six innings, the Angels should have a good chance at this one.

Boston at Oakland (Lowe at Redman), 10:05 pm ET - In advance of tomorrow night's Clash of the Titans, when Pedro Martinez faces Tim Hudson, the Red Sox will try to keep the ball rolling for Derek Lowe. Lowe has pitched pretty well over the last few weeks, and kept a pretty tight lid on the Angels in his last start. Redman, meanwhile, has been terrible at home in 2004. Check it:

Away - 102.2 IP, 2.98 ERA, .249 BAA, .716 OPSA
Home - 61.1 IP, 7.04 ERA, .347 BAA, .989 OPSA

I mean, Jeez. Now, that's a significantly higher number of innings pitched on the road for Redman, but here are the teams he's faced at home this year:

Seattle (6.0 and 6.1 IP)
Anaheim (5.1)
Minnesota (5.0)
Detroit (5.0 and 4.0)
ChiSox (6.0 and 7.0)
Toronto (5.0)
Pittsburgh (5.0)
San Francisco (4.2)
Tampa Bay (2.0)

So it's not like he happened to catch the Yankees in Oakland three times or anything. That's five starts against winning teams and seven against losing teams. Let's hope Boston can take advantage.

McPherson Called Up[ 

Posted 9:19 AM by Sean
Dallas McPherson will join the big club today.

Which is nice for him, I guess. He can keep Andres Galarraga (0 plate appearances) company.

Thanks, but no thanks 

Posted 1:46 PM by Sean
All things considered, I'm starting Labor Day weekend early. Next post Tuesday, unless something dramatic happens.

So Long, and Thanks for All of It, Fish 

Posted 10:26 AM by Sean
The ESPN folks mentioned during last night's broadcast that Tim Salmon had decided to have surgery on his left shoulder and left knee. Today's Times reports that Salmon will likely miss 2005, his last year under contract to the Angels. More to come on this, but for right now, I just want to say thanks to a guy who, for the last eleven years, has defined the Angels more than any other player. He was there for the bad times, and was an integral part of the 2002 championship run. If this is, in fact, the end of Salmon's career, the game is losing one hell of a classy ballplayer.

Everybody Gets Famous 

Posted 9:03 AM by Sean
Maya, Rob, Richard and I (and a couple of bloggers who write about some other team) are quoted in this Jim Alexander column in the Riverside Press-Enterprise today.

Grit Your Teeth and Hold On 

Posted 3:36 PM by Sean
While I'm at it: the A's, currently three games in front of the Angels, have just completed an incredibly successful month. In addition to going 20-8, they scored 150 runs - the most they've scored in any month of 2004 - and allowed just 107 - the fewest they've allowed in any month of 2004.

Oakland has always had pitching. This year, however, they've actually had some pretty solid offensive production. With the exception of Jermaine Dye (and Bobby Crosby, because he's a rookie), every one of the hitters normally in their lineup have been better than their career averages:

Kotsay:
career - .284/.341/.422
2004 - .305/.361/.448

Scutaro:
career - .267/.304/.389
2004 - .281/.305/.399

Chavez:
career - .277/.353/.508
2004 - .282/.402/.551

Hatteberg
career - .272/.362/.418
2004 - .307/.390/.458

Durazo
career - .284/.385/.501
2004 - .325/.392/.543

Byrnes
career - .273/.335/.468
2004 - .289/.347/.486

Miller
career - .266/.333/.424
2004 - .287/.352/.434

Dye
career - .271/.333/.461
2004 - .259/.323/.449

That's simply amazing. Again excepting Dye, every one of these guys is posting better numbers in all three categories. And check THIS out:

Scutaro:
career - .267/.304/.389
2004 - .281/.305/.399
August - .303/.321/.474

Chavez:
career - .277/.353/.508
2004 - .282/.402/.551
August - .308/.402/.635

Hatteberg
career - .272/.362/.418
2004 - .307/.390/.458
August - .352/.444/.486

Durazo
career - .284/.385/.501
2004 - .325/.392/.543
August - .355/.408/.600

Byrnes
career - .273/.335/.468
2004 - .289/.347/.486
August - .311/.344/.437

So where are the sabrmetricians out there? I realize that most of those guys (except Hatteberg and Miller) are in their late 20's, and it's not much of a surprise that any of them, individually, could post numbers like that. But come on - all of them?

It's certainly possible that Oakland's offensive surge will continue unabated through September. Stranger things have happened. But you know, I think I remember reading something about teams like this tending to regre...regriss...ah, yes - regress to the mean. It's just kind of funny that I haven't heard anything about it lately.

This race ain't over by a long shot.

Turning the Page 

Posted 2:08 PM by Sean
All right, well, dropping the first game of a big series is never fun. And the Angels got something of a tough draw, facing Schilling right off the bat (which is not to minimize the fact that Lackey was terrible). Realistically, though, if the Angels can get to Arroyo tonight, they still have a chance of winning this series - they've always been good against Lowe, who pitches on Thursday.

Historically, September has not been good to the Angels. But they turned that around in 2002, and they can do it again.

In other news, keep an eye on the race for the N.L. wildcard. After being written off a couple of weeks ago, both Florida (3 games back) and Houston (2.5 games back) are in the mix, making for a five-team scramble in the last month. Should be pretty entertaining.

Callups 

Posted 11:04 AM by Sean
The Times reports that the first Angels callups are Andres Galarraga, Shane Halter, and Casey Kotchman.