6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: The Return Of The Hanging Judge: Red Sox 2, Angels 1

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Thursday, August 24, 2006

The Return Of The Hanging Judge: Red Sox 2, Angels 1

There's an awfully strong itch to just dismiss tonight's game as a mere artifact of the Angels' inability to hit for power and get men on base. After all, had they managed to work Josh Beckett harder in the earlier innings, they would have seen the bad parts of the Red Sox bullpen much earlier in the game, and so much better for their chances. Of course, it's hard to win ballgames when your hardest hit ball is a two-out double that results in a batter stranded at second.

The problem with assigning blame here is the manifold number of people, players and coaches who richly deserve to be tabbed for it:

In the top of the second, Cabrera allowed Mike Lowell to reach first on what should have been a routine popup. With Vlad and Figgy converging and still plenty of time for any of them to catch the ball, Cabrera inexplicably overran the ball, backed up — and then nobody caught it. It luckily didn't cost anything, as Weaver got Wily Mo Pena to hit into a 5-4-3 GIDP, but it was an omen for ...
... another play that did cost the Angels the winning run in the seventh. With the bases loaded and one out, Brendan Donnelly coaxed a tailor-made double-play ball to short. Except, Cabrera suddenly decided he needed to take the ball to the bag himself rather than throwing it to Adam Kennedy, who was only a step away from the bag. By the time Cabrera arrived at second, Alex Cora had already beaten him there, and he was lucky to get the out at first. It was a mental mistake that certainly cost the Angels the game, but...
... they had a shot at it in the sixth. With a pair of singles (including an infield single from Cabrera, partially making up for his screwup earlier) putting men on first and second and one out, Vlad came to the plate — and hit into an inning ending double play, the second in two days.
Then of course there was Dino Ebel. Do we assign to him the blame for sending Juan Rivera on on Howie Kendrick's RBI single when it wasn't hit all that deep and to left. With the Red Sox playing essentially a defensive replacement outfield (Wily Mo Pena in left has a decent arm, as Rivera quickly discovered), it just wasn't a risk worth taking.

We'll probably hear from the usual suspects as to how the Angels offense isn't broken, with palletloads of non-sequiturs about how the team is built around pitching and defense, as though this were an excuse for failing to get men on and hit for power. We already know Vlad's a liability on the basepaths and pretty damned mediocre with the glove; is it too much to ask that he hit with runners on base? And something besides a lonely single?

I have some special vitriol to aim at the league for their idiotic rule regarding hit-by-pitches. The current situation allows a headhunter like Josh Beckett a freebie by plunking Vlad (on the first damn pitch!), but if the Angels subsequently go after Ortiz, you know who ends up getting the suspension. If the aim is to prevent hit-by-pitches, it's not working; if, as I suspect, the aim is to make it appear as though the league is being tough on headhunters, it's succeeding wildly.

It should be obvious by now that the Angels can't afford to be playing this badly this late in the season. I've said they were a second place team, and that's where I still think they're going to end up. After today, they finish the day five and a half back; it's a bad time to be making these kinds of mistakes, wasting a perfectly good Jered Weaver start and tagging him with a 9-1 record. Vlad and Cabrera owe Weaver on this one, but more, Bill Stoneman owes the team somebody who can hit for power, knows what a walk is, and can stay in the damn lineup, i.e. Dallas McPherson need not apply. When you can't get a win off a team that has five of its regulars on the DL and one of its most unsteady pitchers on the mound, something's terribly, terribly wrong.

Recap • ESPN Box

// posted by Rob @ 11:32 PM link // 3 comments