In which he digs up a moldering corpse and shoots it again 

Posted 9:01 AM by Sean
Ah...nuts.

Nearly a week later, that's about all I can summon. For about 48 hours after Game 3, I occasionally burst into spontaneous muttering: "stupid, stupid, stupid..." Fortunately, I was wandering around Chicago, where such things are not uncommon.

After thinking about it, however, I have the following brief comments:

1. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Scioscia hasn't had a lefty in the bullpen to go to for something like two years, and suddenly he's making that his criteria? C'mon. Even if Rodriguez was gassed - and he probably was - you go to your most effective guy, which is Percival. Dance with the one what brung ya! Washburn had looked terrible in Game 1, and just shouldn't have been relied upon to get a hitter of Ortiz's caliber out.

2. Even so, Scioscia takes only a scintilla of blame for this. The Red Sox had a great series, and hit on all cylinders. Scioscia's mistake may have ended it, but there were plenty of other reasons the Angels were in that position to begin with.

3. Goat of the series: Chone Figgins. Figs just flat fell apart defensively. I've alluded to this before, I believe, but Figgins needs a full-time position or he needs to be traded. Shuttling him from center to third to second in the interest of keeping his bat in the lineup is fine for a short period of time, but it's a huge disservice to him and to the team in the long term.

And that's it. I suspect that, in time, I'll come to remember 2004 as the year the Angels never quite lived up to their potential until the very end of the season, and then got smacked in the playoffs by a team that had been playing better baseball for longer.