Friday, July 20, 2007 |
Chicken Counting: Twins 7, Angels 5
Furthermore, Naps threw out a baserunner, Garret Jones, while Speier was on the mound, despite earlier allowing one with Lackey up there. Anytime Napoli nabs a guy it's a good day; remember he's already had labrum surgery, so he's not got the arm he once had. Napoli even survived a collision at the plate that scarily recalled the one that knocked him out for the last couple weeks or so, but this time to no apparent effect.
Another good thing: the Angels capitalized on errors by the Twinks, getting a pair of runs in the first thanks in part to a throwing error by Little Nicky Punto, and again in the third when rookie Darnell McDonald botched a throw, allowing Vlad to get to second and Figgins to third. GA subsequently knock both in on an RBI double.
But you can't get away with just scoring on the opposition's mistakes; you have to hit, too, and the Angels failed to drive enough to outmatch John Lackey's wretched day (about which, more later). At least, we may say, Mike Scioscia recognized Reggie Willits' late struggles despite picking up three hits in his previous two games (.174/.291/.217 in July), and pushed him down the lineup to the nine hole as so many of us have hoped for over the last month or so.
One more thing we can chalk up into the plus column: good outings by relievers Darren Oliver and Justin Speier, the former having been consistently awful early in the season, and the latter having a few question marks on his performance following an extended bout of what must be the worst flu in the history of man (short of, say, the Spanish Flu of 1918).
The bad news, of course, starts with John Lackey's horrible seven-run start in which he exited after five and getting knocked around like a piñata along the way. One bad outing does not a trend make, but it was too frighteningly reminiscent of an extension of the godawful three-run first in Lackey's July 14 start against Texas. It illustrates exactly why I'm still damned nervous about the Angels' chances down the stretch: two of the Halos' five rotation slots are up for grabs. In the five slot, Bartolo Colon hasn't had a win since June 14, and the team hasn't won one of his starts since a June 24 game against the Pirates.
As for the number four slot in the Angels rotation, the assumption is that Joe Saunders will replace him and be much better than Ervin Santana. While I have no doubt that he may be better than Santana, it's far from clear that he will be much better. I spent some time over at Halos Heaven outlining exactly what was likely to go wrong with the Angels over the balance of the season, and one of those things was Joe Saunders, whose numbers at Salt Lake would seem to indicate a changed approach, one that involves fewer ground balls and more strikeouts. That he has accomplished, but at the penalty of a much higher ERA. Recently, he acknowledged that was exactly his plan:
"In Triple-A, I was battling, striking guys out," he said. "I kept the walks down. One bad pitch a game hurt. Hopefully, I won't do that here. It's tough down there. Hitters are good down there, just like here."Saunders is down about 0.60 in his groundball/flyball ratio over last year in the minors, but his strikeouts are up (8.76 K/9 this year vs. 6.47 last year) — as is his ERA (5.11 this year vs. 2.76 in 2006). Now, you can argue if you want that this is exactly what a pitcher in his position should be doing, testing new approaches in an environment where it doesn't matter so he can be more effective when he comes up to the Show, but it's not apparent that his newfound ability to muscle his way past batters amounts to improvement.
All of this is to say that exactly the last thing the Angels need is bad outings from their three most reliable starters, because wins from their 4 and 5 starters will be like hen's teeth to fetch. Add to this the number of over-.500 teams the Angels will face down the stretch, add to this a Mariners team that keeps ... on ... winning — as they beat the Blue Jays tonight 4-2 — and the crystal ball just gets hazier and hazier. Count those chickens, guys. Until Willits returns to form, until Kotchman shakes off the side effects of his concussion, until the rotation at least gives the team a consistent chance to win, the crystal ball remains hazy.
Meanwhile, it's worth looking past Saunders' overall ERA, and taking a look at his road ERA, as it's generally acknowledged that SLC is a hitters' haven.
Or, look at what he has actually done in the major leagues, which has been just fine.
Do you really think that the Mariners have it in them to win 90 games? They're good, yes, much better than anyone expected them to be, but I don't think that they can maintain this success rate (something like 17 of the last 26) forever.
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