6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

I missed the opening day festivities directly by failing to get tickets, but it didn't matter in fact as the team saved much the same pomp for yesterday's affair, which started off with the presentation of the Cy Young and Silver Slugger awards to Bartolo Colón and Vlad Guerrero. The right-hand flagpole in right-center is now overloaded with division title flags, and another year or two of this and they'll have to stop the practice and start a first-in, first-out pipeline, or only keep the last one up. So goes the fortunes of a team that had won but three division titles in its existence prior to present ownership. Perhaps they can call the movie edition, How Green Was My Shortstop.

As to the new, 2006-ified version of the Calling All Angels video, well, let me say that it's feasible I'll get tired of seeing it after the tenth time or so of arriving at the park early. It's true, the treacly, faux nostalgia for a team many people never cared about before 2002 wipes off pretty easily, like the retro 1971 Angels caps, worn by people who almost certainly weren't following the team in those days. But you can't blame the Angels for trying; they need, and in a hurry, to develop emotional connections to a fanbase that's just as likely to go back to following the Dodgers if the team were to stumble on a repeated basis as they once did. Yet, it's still a great opener; the theme of taking a team from chronic mediocrity-or-worse to a consistent challenger for the division is a powerful one. Removing some of the Autry clips subtracts a little from that, but it's still a great selling tool.

Truth be told, I'd take the 23-year-old Santana over any member of the Yankee rotation other than Johnson himself.

— Cliff Corcoran, Bronx Banter

Is Randy Johnson still a great pitcher? The answer seems to be yes. PECOTA tabs him for a 53.3 VORP, the third-highest in the majors after Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana. Meanwhile, PECOTA expects Ervin Santana, the other one, to turn up with a 19.2 VORP, equivalent to a 4.37 ERA. Johnson, at least if you were to believe PECOTA, still has plenty left in the tank, although we saw him struggle last year in ALDS Game 3, thanks — I believe — to cold weather and his back combining to make him very hittable. His velocity is down, too; these days, he rarely gets the ball into the mid-90's as he used to.

But his hard slider still works, and so last night he was on, pitching a complete game with eight strikeouts. It wasn't enough, as the Angels managed seven hits off him, including a 2-3 night by Robb Quinlan, who made the start at first in place of lefty Casey Kotchman, who seemed to be struggling a bit with the bat anyway. As it turned out, Q and Vlad were the only two Angels to have multiple hits against Johnson. Perhaps Mike Scioscia wanted to sit Kotchman against a tough lefty, or maybe he liked what he saw when Q went 1-2 against Johnson in Game 3 of last year's ALDS. Whatever the reason for putting Quinlan in the lineup, he made a strong case for continued at bats with his strong performance, one in which he made several strong plays with the glove as well. If we don't see him out there today, I'm certain he'll reappear within the week.

Ervin Santana, hardly the ace of the Angels staff, posted a brilliant game, keeping the 1-5 hitters — as fearsome as any lineup in baseball these days — down to a solo homer and a single. He didn't collect anything like the eight strikeouts that Johnson managed — he only got two. Despite it, the Yanks only scored a solo homer against him, and mounted only one serious threat, a bases-loaded jam in the sixth from which J.C. Romero extracted young Santana's hide by eliciting a popup off the bat of Matsui, caught in a wonderful, over-the-shoulder running catch by shortstop Cabrera just past second base.

Kennedy, who was last year's hero in ALDS Game 5, came up big again, and against the unlikeliest of opponents, a presumptive Hall of Famer. As well, he sparkled defensively, cleaning up on a hot smash off Giambi's bat with the shift on in the ninth. I'm going to miss his glove when he leaves, and already I wonder where he lands. Maybe it'll be the Cards, where he can spend his days with David Eckstein.

K-Rod continues to worry me. Forget that he's already given up a pair of homers so far this year, one of them in last night's game to Matsui, not to mention giving up a wild pitch in Bernie Williams' at bat that allowed pinch runner Bubba Crosby to advance to second; in small samples (3.0 IP), he's got a 6.00 ERA. He most assuredly is not the dominating closer the Angels had hoped for, and one reason why is his violent delivery. Already, they talk about it in the radio booth, and in the print; it's a matter of time before he collapses. Sure, he struck out Posada, and his strikeout rate continues to be in the elite range; but he scares me going forward. For now, though, I rejoice in an Angels team that has the Yankees' number. That's just what they do.

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