Wednesday, October 12, 2005 |
Broke: White Sox 2, Angels 1
"Two ways. Gradually, and then suddenly."
— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also RisesThe call wasn't the problem, though it will be debated for eons, especially if the Angels lose the series. No, all that the call did was make it possible for the Angels to lose. The prospect of winning had been in their hands all along, and like Josh Paul's toss to the mound, they threw it away, one one-two-three half inning at a time. Now, that's not to say the umpiring crew doesn't deserve a severe upbraiding for their idiotic behavior; regardless of what happened, the home plate umpire appears to have made the "out" call, and Paul made the silly mistake of believing him. But he could have thrown the ball to first. He could have tagged the batter. He could have shown the ball to the umpire and asked, "Out?" Instead, he did none of these things, and the Angels now find themselves tied for the series.
This is not in itself a terrible thing. The Angels still have home field advantage now, three games to two. But with Vlad continuing to slump, it's obvious that the key players at the top of the order simply cannot go 0-4 or 1-4 indefinitely and expect the offense to survive the postseason. It strikes me as likely that Vlad is trying to hit a five-run homer, and seeing the rest of the team fail to hit is making it worse. Either that, or he's injured and hiding it, and possibly both.
The same is true to varying degrees with the rest of the team. The Angels' ALDS Game 3 would have been unusual in the regular season, as the Angels scored ten runs or more in a game exactly ten times this year. That is to say, the offense was spotty. If you're going to blame an umpire's call for your loss, something else was very, very wrong. That something else was Vlad, but it might as well have been Garret Anderson or Adam Kennedy or -- well, there's a whole roster of names.
There was one truly exciting play the Angels really failed to follow up on, and that was getting Aaron Rowand out at home on what almost certainly would have been an inside-the-park home run. Defensive miscues by both Vlad and Cabrera encouraged Rowand to charge toward the plate, but Robb Quinlan -- the only man to score a run and drive one in, on his solo homer -- nailed him with a perfect throw covering for both O-Cab and Vladi. And in the next frame, Jose Molina got aboard on a blown toss to first, at which point I was hoping for a rally. That, of course, didn't happen, when Kennedy grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The whole game was like that, really, ultimately coming down to which team got the biggest break or which side was going to screw up the least. As Rich Lederer pointed out in a phone conversation after the game, you could certainly argue that Scioscia actually made the bad call by the umpires worse by arguing for eight minutes, letting his reliever get cold, and thus leading to the cookie and the loss. But could he have done any differently? I mean, it was necessary that he make a fuss over this one; it turned out, certainly, that Mike's intuition about the call was correct, and there wasn't any margin for error. Sure enough, the Sox capitalized, and won.
Not that this is necessarily the worst of all possible endings. By winning, the Sox also prevented a bullpen marathon a la the July 28 game against the Blue Jays. Such a game the Angels (a) were certain to lose with the Sox' well-rested pen, and (b) would deplete their fairly shallow pen for further use in the series. Off day tomorrow or not, I have to believe that extra innings would prove extra taxing for the Halos. Giving Frankie, at least, a rest can't be a bad thing. Three more to go, boys, three more to go.
Nah, I don't quite buy that. Escobar had him up 0-2, but he had been leaving stuff over the plate during that inning. Scoscia was playing fire with Washburn too, he was leaving fat pitches in his last inning of work too, but the Sox couldn't time it. . Escobar left a splitter up in the zone (which is actually hard to do), which speaks to fatigue catching up with him.
FWIW, even if the Angels got out of that inning, I still felt the Sox would have eventually won. Because the Sox starter absolutely owned the hitters, Guillen could have easily drawn into his bullpen for another 5 or 6 innings need be? Were could Scoscia go next with the bullpen? Use K-rod for the 3rd straight day? And so on. Scoscia managed for a 9-10 inning game.
In that regard, I also agree with you that this wasn't the worst ending. Shields only went one inning. Frankie wasn't used. The entire offensive team got a very painful reminder about their lack of run production.
That being said, the Sox pitching staff is awesome, as are the Angels. You gotta tip your hat to his brilliant performance as well as Washburn's gutsy effort. Really, the Angels pitching has been UNBELIEVABLY good through almost the entire postseason.
I was wrong in thinking the Angels couldn't beat the Yanks without Vlad. But I have no doubt that this series will be decided by his bat. If he goes cold, I'm afraid the Angels could be beaten while posting a sub-4 ERA.
: 10/12/2005 11:32:00 PMGotta love the hoodoo voodoo of baseball man. It's fantastic!
: 10/12/2005 11:38:00 PM : 10/13/2005 08:50:00 AM : 10/13/2005 09:13:00 AMIf the White Sox win the pennant/World Series, will you hold a grudge against them and not credit them with the pennant/championship?
Plus it's not fair to the ChiSox starter (an ace-level guy with a 3.18 ERA in the regular season), who pitched a brilliant, brilliant game. Had the game gone to extra innings, the Sox would have had a complete bullpen and probably would have faced Gregg. You had to like the Sox chances.
: 10/13/2005 10:40:00 AMNewer› ‹Older
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