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

I was never estranged from my family, though I know people who have been. One of my college girlfriends was like that, and I can only imagine what that might be like. For Angels fans, Bengie Molina had been as family, in the limited sense that players being paid millions of dollars can be as family to thousands of strangers who know him only as a cluster of pixels on a TV screen. In the end, Bill Stoneman cast him out — an obvious and necessary move, and one I still support. B-Mo had lost his mobility behind the plate, had stopped throwing out base-stealers at the prodigious rate he once did, and wanted an expensive multi-year contract. Stoneman wasn't interested, and off to Toronto he eventually ran, though not without a few hurt feelings making their way into the press.

The story with 2002 World Series MVP Troy Glaus was remarkably similar: Dallas McPherson was ready, the Angels brain trust thought, or so close the difference was meaningless. Glaus, who in 2003 and 2004 had spent lots of time on the DL, didn't really field any serious offers from the Angels, who let him go to the Diamondbacks; the Snakes, in turn eventually traded him to the Blue Jays after deciding that Jeff Moorad wasn't cutting it as GM.

Here in the early part of the 2006 season, it's clear that the Angels miss both their bats. The steep declines of Garret Anderson, and especially, Darin Erstad, the failure of virtually all of the rookies to pan out on schedule, and a string of missed opportunities in the 2005 postseason all seem to cast doubt on those decisions. With the team struggling to score runs, a big, proven bat looks nigh well irresistable.

All these desires and memories combined tonight for both players to get warm receptions when they came to the plate, and indeed, even before the game. And indeed, as if some kind of rebuke to the team's construction, the Angels doing all the offensive damage were the team's veterans tonight, with Cabrera and Vlad driving in a pair, Cabrera going 3-4 and putting on a show at shortstop with his defense, in particular making a perfect stop of Adams' grounder in the top of the third, and managing to get the throw to first without yanking Quinlan too far off the bag.

The game had its other moments: defensively, Kennedy made a great stop of Lyle Overbay's grounder, and Vernon Wells robbed Vlad of extra bases on a great running catch in the bottom of the eighth. Figgins, on the other hand, seems to be going through some kind of defensive slump, and botched a catch of Aaron Hill's line drove in the top of the sixth, an error that would allow a run to score subsequently. Likewise, he got a bad jump on Overbay's flyball in the ninth that turned it into a single, opening the door to what looked like a possible repeat of the sixth. But no; Scot Shields settled down and got Alex Rios to meekly ground out, ending the inning and the game.

On offense: Vlad's two-run shot. Mmm. And exhibits for the prosecution in terms of Bill Stoneman's strategy, as ably outlined by the Rev: runners running at will against Bengie Molina (and unable to keep up with sliders in the dirt — the cause of an angel run in the sixth), Troy Glaus's slippery defense, and Scott Schoeneweis's bizarre inability to get lefties out.

But the big attraction, the main pole in the center of the tent, had to be Jose Molina stealing off Ted Lilly in the four-run sixth. Former Dodger Jason Frasor knocked out his previous two adversaries, Robb Quinlan and Edgardo Alfonzo, in order. It looked like another 1-2-3 inning was upon the Angels offense, but Jose had other ideas, propelling a single into shallow left while turning his bat into an infield propeller after he lost control of it.

Then, the Jays brought in lefty Scott Schoeneweis to face Adam Kennedy, and the stadium erupted in boos and catcalls. Never a fan favorite, his complaining about playing time got him shipped to the White Sox at the 2003 trade deadline. Nobody forgot it, or his mediocre record as an Angel. Jose then did something completely unexpected: he stole second against both his former teammates. That sparked a four-run, two-out rally on the back of five consecutive singles and two walks; the Angels batted around before the Jays could record the final out of the sixth, and really put away the game then and there.

But the funniest moment was yet to come. In the very next inning, and ironically, also with two out, Bengie got on base by a single, and then stole second off his brother and Santana. As with Jose's stolen base, it launched a short-lived rally of its own and knocked Ervin out of the game; he left to widespread cheers, and while his replacement allowed an inherited runner to score, he snuffed out the rally before the game was ever really threatened. And thus was the humor aspect of the slowest man in baseball — Barry Bonds and his reengineered knees perhaps notwithstanding — stealing second without a throw from his sibling preserved.

It was not all fun: Troy Glaus took a pitch in the elbow in the early going, and according to the Jays recap, X-rays came back negative, but I have to imagine he may sit out tomorrow depending on how hard Santana's pitch hit him.

At last, I have a question: why did John Gibbons pull Lilly before he completed the fifth? He wasn't really struggling, and he'd only thrown 86 pitches. I just don't get it, but maybe there's some secret decoder ring I need to buy before I can figure out why managers do things.

Recap