6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Experience Pays: Angels 9, Devil Rays 2

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Saturday, July 15, 2006

Experience Pays: Angels 9, Devil Rays 2

Joe Maddon had been the Angels bench coach since May 17, 1994. In the time he had been in that position, the Angels were 938-902, or a .510 winning percentage. But if you remove the last four years — i.e., from 2002 on —, that number goes down to 575-617, or a .482 winning percentage, during which time the Angels only managed three winning seasons, and one of those by a single game (2000's 82-80 squad). That is to say, Joe Maddon suffered mightily along with the rest of the Angels prior to the title year, so he knows a lot about how flailing teams operate.

Almost immediately, you could tell he was getting really frustrated, and with good reason. With a leadoff double from Julio Lugo, Carl Crawford had gotten to two strikes — and bunted foul for strike three. At that exact moment, Joe looked utterly stunned, as if he'd seen a ghost, or an instant replay.

So much for that. Scott Kazmir having been duly lifted for James Shields, Shields put up a pretty good fight for, oh, about three innings, his RBI single to Vlad in the first notwithstanding; Vlad, who picked up his 1,000th career RBI with the hit, celebrated by running into an out. He assumed the throw was headed to the catcher, but instead it went to Julio Lugo who easily got him into a rundown. Same old Vlad: brilliant and reckless stupid, all in the same game.

The brilliant part came back later, on Vlad's seventh-inning grand slam, but it turned out to be the second homer of the game. Mike Napoli came up with one in the third, a towering moonshot that lifted the ball well into the left-field bullpens. The most fun play of the evening, though, had to be Figgins' consecutive steals of second and home followed by an Orlando Cabrera sac fly to bring the score to 4-2. Shields had harryied Angels baserunners all night, and successfully picked off both Chone Figgins and Juan Rivera, so the victory on the basepaths tasted especially sweet.

The Angels, who finally get to .500 for the first time since April 18, are now a game and a half back of both Oakland and Texas, who lost, along with last-place Seattle. This makes nine wins in their last ten. Let's see if they can keep that up.

ESPN Box • Recap

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