Sunday, May 20, 2007 |
Lowe And Away: Angels 4, Dodgers 1
Instead, it was Orlando Cabrera, Vlad Guerrero (no surprise), Casey Kotchman (!), and Erick Aybar who all had two or more hits. Guerrero reached on a two-out double in the top of the first, and then, in another display of the sloppy fielding that has plagued the Dodgers in this series, Gary Matthews, Jr.'s routine grounder to third turned into a man on third, two out when Wilson Betemit bobbled it. Casey Kotchman immediately made the Dodgers pay for that, smacking a solid single to right that plated Vlad.
The Angels mostly obliged Derek Lowe in the next three innings. Erick Aybar's leadoff single in the second inning turned ridiculous when Aybar was caught stealing on a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play to end the frame. The Angels didn't get a man on base in the next two innings.
The Halos finally broke through against Lowe in the fifth. Erick Aybar started off with a leadoff infield single, a tapper to Lowe that he could not get to first fast enough. Jose Molina followed up with another single, pushing Aybar to third, but then Tommy Murphy hit into a fielder's choice that erased Aybar at home with the contact play on.
Those hoping for great things from Reggie Willits were disappointed, as he struck out looking, almost getting Lowe off the hook. Fortunately, Cabrera kept the inning alive with a single to Wilson Betemit he couldn't handle, loading the bases for Vlad, who drove two home with an RBI single. That is, the Angels' death-by-a-thousand-cuts offense was once again on, and the Dodgers found themselves victims of it, perhaps more galling because this fusillade came with two outs.
Cabrera even advanced to third on a rare Rafael Furcal throwing error, and Matthews cashed him in, and yet Lowe, who had a relatively low pitch count, stayed in the game. He got out of the inning by getting Kotchman to pop out to Russ Martin, and thereafter held the Angels to only two baserunners. Erick Aybar reached on a swinging strikeout wild pitch in the sixth, and Kotchman hit a long, hard triple over the head of Andre Ethier near the top of the scoreboard in right in the third. But neither amounted to anything, and thus were the Halos limited to four runs, three earned, giving Lowe a quality start plus.
Escobar was dominant, three-hitting the Dodgers over eight, and posting a terrific comeback game to follow up his last, terrible, and brief outing. The Dodgers threatened only three times, scoring once. In the first, Furcal and Garciaparra got consecutive singles, but Jeff Kent grounded into a 5-4-3 double play marked by a very sharp bare-handed play by Izturis. In the fifth, Russ Martin singled, and advanced on a wild pitch during Ethier's at bat.
That at bat gives me pause to discuss Russ Martin's place in the lineup. Is there some reason Martin is held in such low esteem that Grady Little feels it necessary to post him all the way down in the six hole? Shouldn't he be batting at least fifth, or maybe even third? Martin is slugging almost a hundred points better than Nomar at the moment, and I just wonder how many games it will be before Grady Little realizes that Nomar isn't likely to do better than a .425 SLG for the whole season. Nomar was doing this for his July and August of last year, too, and so far for all of 2007. Martin's a catcher, true, and he's liable to fade in the second half, also true; his August 2006 line of .261/.350/.398 was hardly awe-inspiring, but much more of this and Nomar's going to find himself batting fifth or sixth.
Finally, the Dodgers did break through in the top of the ninth against a once again wobbly Scot Shields. Once more, he started his first batter with elevated pitches above the strike zone. He managed to get Furcal out on a called third strike and six pitches, without Furcal lifting the bat off his shoulder; but Pierre singled and Jeff Kent doubled to cash him in. Shields has had some bad outings lately, and he may not be all that valuable going forward. This was exactly the sort of game that he really had to do well in if he wanted to keep his eighth inning role intact, and once more, he left the mound with questions about his performance.
Incidental notes:
- Lowe pitched a complete game for the second time this year, his previous one also being a 3-0 shutout loss to the Marlins only two starts ago, on May 10. Lowe leads active Dodger pitchers in complete games, with three. Before this season, the Dodgers' last complete game loss was a September 17, 2005 loss to the Giants at SBC Park with Jeff Weaver on the mound, with the final score 2-1. The Dodgers' last complete game victory prior to 2007 was Derek Lowe's win against the Mariners in interleague play last year, outdueling "King" Felix Hernandez on June 22, 2006 for a 4-2 win.
- The game set a 3-game series attendance record at Angels Stadium since its 1996 reconfiguration, with 133,023. It was the team's third straight sellout.
- Photo Day was something of a bust; I didn't get in until it started, and the players meandered in opposite directions from where I was, on the first base side. I get better pictures at spring training.
Labels: angels, dodgers, recaps
Scot came into this game with opposing batters hitting .154 against him. He's had an ERA of 1.69 in May. And you make it out as if he has something to prove or he's going to lose his set-up role? That he may have no future value? Come on, Rob, check your head for a second and tell me you regret writing that a little. Even after leaving today's game, he has a sweet 1.00 WHIP, and has appeared in 22 games.
Giving up three runs over eleven appearances and twelve innings does not make one a mop-up pitcher. Step away from the coffee cup, sir.
At no time did I suggest he has no future value, just that it isn't what it was. And really, that's fair.
He missed high on the first few pitches. He hasn't been missing high all season, or even all week. It's happened in select outings. He has a 2.38 ERA on the month. Yes, he's given up two HRs this month. He gave up 4 last August as well.
Sure, his strikeouts are still in order, but he's given up four home runs already -- exactly half his 2006 total in less time.
As I indicated, Scot usually gives up HRs in bunches. He gave up 5 HRs in four weeks time between July 29 and August 26 last season too, and had an ERA near 5 within that window.
But how you get from a mechanical flaw to the end of Scot Shields as we've known him is anyone's guess, not that you don't do it with nearly every player on the team. I'm certainly not the only one that reminds you of the central doomsaying tendency of this blog. If we could take all these black predictions for gold, K-Rod would be on the extended DL and Nap hitting .150 in AAA right now.
Do note:
he may not be all that valuable going forward
At no time did I suggest he has no future value, just that it isn't what it was.
At least read your own writing, Rob. "He may not be all that valuable" is pretty much saying "he may not have future value".
Though I fully admit to expecting to see the same treatment of Willits today given his 0-for. You opened with that dark cloud as your lede, but thankfully the blogfather showed restraint. A ray among the clouds!
So you claim. I'll confess that I could have made clearer what I intended, but I still maintain that Scioscia's call was the most important view of what happened: he yanked Shields from what should have been a straightforward three-out non-save situation. That does not speak well of his performance.
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