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

So, aside from honoring the slain at Virginia Tech, there is the temptation to also note that the VT cap Joe Saunders wore in today's start — possibly his last with the Angels for a while — could have had a couple other unintended meanings. For instance, Very Timely, as in the two line-drive double plays that got him out of jams. Or, Very Tremulous, as in throwing nearly half his pitches outside the strike zone. Regardless, Saunders managed a shutout through six while only striking out one, a fine commemoration of his alma mater.

It's probably worth mentioning that the lineup Saunders suppressed was one of only three offenses worse than the Angels last year, the other two being, predictably, the Devil Rays and the Royals. That lineup hasn't been much improved over the winter, and so the contest largely came down to the Angels' flaky flailers and the guy they were up against, Miguel Batista. The scouting report from U.S.S. Mariner at the time of the signing last December read thusly:

I like Miguel Batista as a pitcher. I lobbied for the M’s to sign him several years ago, and he’s consistently underrated. He’s better than most of the guys who were on the market this winter. If you had forced me to sign free agent starting pitchers this winter, he’d have been near the top of the list of guys I would have gone after.

But context is also important, and in the case of the roster the Mariners have built, Miguel Batista is not what this team needs. He’s a durable guy that turns 36 in February who keeps the ball in the yard and won’t get you blown out of ballgames, but he doesn’t miss bats and has mediocre command. That package makes him a #4 starter on a team with a good rotation, but now, he’s the Mariners #2 starter. A three year contract would wrap him up through his age 38 season.

This is the Mariners' number two guy? Actually, the M's rotation is currently Felix Hernandez, Jarrod Washburn, Batista, Horacio Ramirez, and Jeff Weaver. But the fact that he's even a number three should tell you why Pat Gillick likely left the team in 2004: the farm system cupboard was completely bare, Felix Hernandez notwithstanding. Whatever you may think of relative mediocrities like Saunders and Dustin Moseley, guys who generally keep the ball down, in the strike zone, and pitch to contact, the M's don't even have that much floating around in their system. Part of that's because they've had the league's worst luck with injuries; guys like Travis Blackley, Joel Pineiro, and Cha Baek are maybe the best-known pitchers who have gone through the M's system with reduced ability, some (like Blackley) becoming outright failed prospects. But part of it was successive failures in the draft, and so the M's have become what the Angels had been many times in the past, and to some degree, what the Yankees are right now: dependent on the free agency market for their starting pitching.

Bautista posted a quality start against Texas for his first outing in a Mariners' uniform, but it didn't take long for the Angels to light him up. He got two efficient outs right away, getting Gary Matthews, Jr. on a popup to short and Orlando Cabrera on a flyout to center that required Ichiro! to use his prodigious speed.

But then he gave up consecutive doubles to Vlad and Anderson, uncorking a wild pitch during GA's at bat that sent Vlad easily to third. Casey Kotchman plated Anderson with a solidly hit single, and only Shea Hillenbrand's anticipated strikeout, looking, brought the two-out run scoring to a stop. It was more runs than the Angels scored in the entire Oakland series.

Mike Napoli got in on the fun in the second by ripping a double down the left field line, inches past the glove of a diving Adrian Beltre. Later, in the sixth, he blasted a solo shot into left center; the hits were his first in three games, and it marked his first multi-hit game of the year. He ended the game with a small-sample-sized .212 average, which for him is breathtaking considering his awful second half last year. He even managed to nab Adrian Beltre 2-6 attempting to steal second to end the first inning, another bit of defensive aid for a very wobbly Joe Saunders, shutout or no.

Perennial bigmouth Jose Guillen actually did himself proud, going 2-4 with a double in the second, and an infield single that loaded the bases in the fourth, the latter despite getting behind to Saunders on one of his rare 1-2 counts. But once more, Saunders wiggled out of the two-out jam when he got a flyball to right from Kenji Johjima.

So along the way, Vlad homered, going 3-5, Kotchman went 3-4 with an RBI while scoring a pair himself, and generally the offense ran the way you would hope it would. Too bad it required a relatively wobbly pitcher to bring that out, not to mention a lot of luck; Maicer Izturis' third inning double was a hard bouncer just over the estimable wingspan of Ritchie Sexson. Likewise, the M's bats heated up once Hector Carrasco, due for a bad outing, came into the game and started not missing bats. All four Seattle runs came under his watch, and if it hadn't been for a bad play by Matthews, Jr., they all would have been earned, too. As it was, he took three, enough of a shotgun blast for an inning and a third's work.

Thus was Frankie brought in. He coaxed the ground ball from Jose Vidro he needed. Morales fielded it cleanly, threw to second — and on the return throw, collided with K-Rod when both tried to field the ball simultaneously. Neither did, and Vidro reached safely. Frankie went the undemocratic route and struck out Jason Ellison for the game's last out, thus providing a suitable introduction to the fireworks after the game.

Recap • Yahoo Box

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At last, a couple notes about the game's environment:

• Ruby's is finally open! Yay! They're on the pavilion level near the rocks, and there's also one infield at field level as well.
• Casey Kotchman was robbed of a triple and a possible RBI in the seventh when some idiot fan decided to interfere with a ball in play. We didn't get a good look at it because everyone was standing in front of us, but ... come on, stupidheads.
• If half the listed 43,359 appeared in the park, you could've fooled me.

And lastly, one question about bullpen usage: with an eight-run lead, why bring in Speier? Why not use Bootcheck?

Labels: angels, mariners, recaps