Saturday, May 12, 2007 |
Sheriff Bart: Angels 6, Rangers 3
"My goal every year is to have more walks than strikeouts," Willits said. "Last year was the first time I've done that."Oh, this kid's gold; he's first in VORP among AL rookie position players, and as we all know from Napoli's brief arc in the sun and ugly descent back to earth, these things have a way of working themselves out unpleasantly. He got two singles today and scored two. I thank him for his continued production and pray he makes it to "acceptable" once his pixy-dust-enhanced, team-leading .431 BABIP drops some.
Anyway, that aside aside, Bart was pretty golden himself through three, but gave up a homer to Teixeira in the fourth, a two-run job that didn't threaten the Angels' lead significantly. The Rangers got another in the sixth on a Sammy Sosa single. What's impressing me this year about Sosa isn't necessarily the home runs, though those are mighty studly; no, it's the average I figured he'd lost. Sosa's still striking out at a pretty good clip, with 26 to date, but a .277 average is no liability at the plate.
The Angels jumped on Kameron Loe in the first and second innings, and the groundballer could scarcely blink before he was back 5-0 and the Rangers, longballs or no, had some serious uphill climbing to do against a pitcher who has all but handed them their collective posteriors in the past. His replacement to start the seventh, Dustin Moseley, started the frame by throwing two way high pitches out of the strike zone to Nelson Cruz; Cruz eventually singled to left, and Gerald Laird ripped a hot smash that looked destined for extra bases. Fortunately, Figgins nabbed it, but his spinning bullet to second was off the line, perhaps a side effect of his hand injury (recall he said throwing was still a problem for him), and Aybar's throw to first was likewise off. That got Moseley the hook, and Shields came in to restore order for an inning and the remaining two outs of the seventh, with Frankie slamming the door in the ninth.
Aside from Willits now-surprisingly commonplace offense (don't get used to it, kids — let's see where he is before the All-Star break), there were two other feel-good stories for the Angels in this game: first, a pair of solidly hit singles from Casey Kotchman. It's his first multihit game this month, and only his fourth hit of May. The second was Figgins' 1-3 day with a walk. You've got to like the way he's swinging the bat in the last few games, and he begins to look like he's not a liability at the plate, .163 average notwithstanding. Perhaps counting as a good thing — or not, depending on how you view Hillenbrand's presence on the team — was yet another lame infield single from Shea Hillenbrand. Despite argumentation from the Rangers, he did in fact beat out the throw. Will he be in the lineup after June? Beats me, but we need to see more extra-base hits.
Labels: angels, rangers, recaps
is this a defense mechanism so as not to be too disappointed later should a prospect fail to live up to his acclaim?
Willits on the other hand was gold in the minors, a .397 OBP and steadily decreasing strikeouts. I think there's enough there in his record to expect a player that hits .300 with a .360-.370 OBP clip. With Reggie's speed and situational skillset, it's more than the Angels could hope have hoped for in a leadoff man.
In any case, the runner could've possible scored from first save for the sprawling pick by Figgs, so that's something.
Interesting thing about Napoli-type players (basically, Tettleton, Gene Tenace, Joe Ferguson, Darren Daulton, and maybe Darrell Porter) -- All had pretty wild performance swings until their latter 20s, before finding a sweet spot. (Ferguson was inconsistent to the end, though I blame some of that on Dodger usage.)
It's a tough skill-set for reaching consistency, and challenge for anyone to coach, let alone Mickey Hatcher. The good news is that Napoli achieved success before nearly all of them. The bad news is that I'm sure there are other three-true-outcome catchers who started big then collapsed ... must go do some research.
How about:
Minor league baseball is about developing players, and not so much about winning games.
I mean, I'm sorry if you live in Salt Lake or Arkansas, but what's important is how the players perform and develop. I could give a shit about the final score, and in the long run, I'm guessing the Angels brass feels the same way. If they think Wood is destined to hit third in the majors, and they think he should be hitting there in the minors, that's good enough for me.
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