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

CSU Fullerton baseball head coach George Horton will be off to the University of Oregon, according to Baseball America. According to the comment thread following the BA article, the move leaves associate head coach Rick Vanderhook as the favorite to run things at CSUF, but Horton wants to take the rest of his coaching staff with him.

Labels: ncaa

Don't Take It Personally, Padres — David Wells Doesn't

You're in the Dodgers now
And not the team down south...

---

“How strange is this?” Wells admitted Wednesday morning via telephone from Dodger Stadium. “Obviously, there are some mixed emotions.

“I had intended to end my career as a Padre. Instead, I'm going to try to . . . I have a job to do.

“But, hey, after we're done . . . they're my friends. I wish them well. But not against us, and I'm a Dodger now. We've got to beat the Padres and move on. It's baseball. Next year, hey, I'll probably be a fan of the Padres again.”

The City Of Anaheim's Lawlessness

Looks like Arte Moreno and the city of Anaheim are once again about to lock horns, this time over development in the Angels Stadium parking lot:

The 53-acre site, which is on the outskirts of the lot and includes the Grove theater,had been used in an attempt to attract an NFL team. But the city recently gave exclusive development rights to Archstone-Smith and Hines, a nationally known builder that has proposed incorporating 1,100 apartments into a project that also could include offices, hotels, shops and entertainment venues.

The city owns the property, but the Angels hold a lease that forbids housing on the site. Sources said the sale price of reportedly more than $150 million could increase by about $50 million if the city persuaded Moreno to waive that restriction.

In a July 23 meeting with Moreno, city officials presented Archstone's vision for the site. Moreno expressed concern that the project would infringe upon the Angels' lease rights regarding parking, ease of access to the stadium and views of the park from neighboring streets and freeways. Moreno also objected to the presence of City Atty. Jack White at the meeting.

If the Angels have it in writing that their lease forbids that construction, the city's case appears to be mighty weak. Retribution?

The Team To Beat: Diamondbacks 8, Padres 7

A one-sided shutout for the Snakes through six suddenly got interesting late; Pads starter Chris Young just had nothing, his third game of his last four in which he surrendered four or more runs. He failed to make it out of the fifth while giving up five runs. Milton Bradley hit a dramatic solo homer against Snakes' closer Jose Valverde in the bottom of the ninth to bring the score to within one, but that was it for the Pads, who fall a game back of Arizona for the division crown, with the Dodgers four games back, and three games out of the wild card. The Dodgers are also a behind suddenly resurgent Philadelphia (two games back of the Pads), who just completed a four-game sweep of the Mets to make both the Wild Card and NL East races that much more interesting.

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Rangers Extend Ron Washington

Though I'm not sure why; I guess they figure he's expendable at the price.

Labels: angels, diamondbacks, dodgers, padres, recaps

Labels: minors

For the third straight game, John McLaren called on Rick White who had a 7.67 ERA with the Astros with a 1.705 WHIP in a game-critical situation. With J.J. Putz available (and completely unused during the Angels series), White walked in the winning run on a day after he poured gasoline on two different fires, allowing three inherited runners to score on Tuesday and giving up a pair of runs on Wednesday.

Think about this. White has either allowed inherited runners to score or has given up earned runs of his own in six straight games, including his last three appearances with the Astros, and McLaren continues to use him. U.S.S. Mariner:

John McLaren simply doesn’t understand how to manage a roster. In game strategy isn’t everything, but it’s part of the job, and he fails at it.

Thank you, John McLaren, for the Angels' 5.5-game lead in the AL West.

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Labels: indians, mariners, recaps, stupid ideas

The Yankees swept the Red Sox behind Chien-Ming Wang's shutout, held up by Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez. Curt Schilling pitched well enough but was missing velocity, as his heater topped out at about 88. The Bosox offense was also punchless, but of more relevance to the Angels, on an off day the 79-54 Halos advanced to within a half game of the 80-54 Red Sox for the bragging-rights title of best record in the majors.

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Labels: recaps, red sox, yankees

That Other Sweep: Dodgers 10, Nationals 9

I have managed to keep quiet through this entire series against the Nats on the general ground that I'm not really that certain it proves a whole lot, though it does fall neatly in line with the axiom that good teams have to beat the bad ones. Unfortunately, the entire series conflicted with the Angels run, and so I missed all but Shea Hillenbrand's shocking and heroic sac fly, breaking up four straight zero frames for both sides since Matt Kemp's seventh inning solo homer. But Hillenbrand hitting a homer? Mmph. For all but one of the team's RBIs to come from the 6-7-8 part of the lineup is odd, to say the least.

As for Penny... no comment.

Recap • Yahoo Box

And Speaking Of Sweeps...: Padres 3, Diamondbacks 1

Three straight wins mean the Pad people get the chance for the sweep tonight at the place where the pets go. Maddux was characteristically effective, getting seven innings out of 88 pitches.

With all those losses and the Dodgers' sweep, suddenly the NL West is back to being a horse race, with the boys in blue only 3.5 games back of division leading San Diego, ahead of the Snakes by percentage points. Incidentally, I stumbled across an interesting wrinkle on division standings and elimination numbers this weekend at Wikipedia, wherein the section on "Subtlety" comes up with this bit:

Sometimes a team can appear to have a mathematical chance to win even though they have actually been eliminated already, due to scheduling. In this major league baseball scenario, there are three games remaining in the season. Teams "A", "B" and "C" are assumed to be eligible only for the division championship; another team with a better record in another division has already clinched the one available "wild card" spot:

Team	Wins	Losses
"A"	97	62
"B"	97	62
"C"	95	64

If Team "C" were to win all three remaining games, it would finish at 98-64, and if both Teams "A" and "B" were to lose their three remaining games, they would finish at 97-65, which would make Team "C" the division winner. However if Teams "A" and "B" are playing against each other in the final weekend (in a 3 or 4 game series), one of them will necessarily have to win at least two games and thereby clinch the division title with a record of either 100-62 or 99-63. The more direct consequence of this situation is that it is also not possible for Teams "A" and "B" to finish in a tie with each other.

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Drew, Hoo, Hoo

Huh. J.D. Drew, a platoon player for $14M/year. I was right, I was right, I was right, etc. (Gotta make up for all those times I've been wrong.)

Labels: diamondbacks, dodgers, nationals, padres, recaps

Stephen Smith gets all huffy about Matt Hurst's blog post calling Santana's supporters "ignorant" for believing that Santana's Boston start, and not his most recent start in Seattle, was "the real deal". In truth, Santana's hallmark has been his inconsistency, both at the major league level and in the minors, something both writers tend to forget. The Angels may yet get to find out what he has left, since Mike Scioscia still considers him a candidate to start Monday against Oakland.

Labels: angels

News

• The Bees have clinched a postseason berth despite a loss thanks to a loss by the Sky Sox. They will face either the River Cats or the Tucson Sidewinders in the first round against the Pacific South division.
• AZL Angels OF Anthony Norman was named AZL Most Valuable Player and was one of the three Angels prospects to make the postseason All-Star Game, the other two being LHP Mike Anton, and 2B Ivan Contreras.
• Doesn't strictly belong here, but the Angels still consider Ervin Santana an option for Monday's start vs Oakland.

Scores

Without comment, as I've gotta go early today... signing papers for the new house ...

Labels: minors

A magnificent sweep featuring if not his best performance of the year then certainly Jered Weaver's most important performance. The offense knocked out 13 hits and six runs, all earned, off "King" Felix Hernandez, while Weaver got things to play out his way, including a pickoff of Jose Lopez off first in the fifth (which the M's retaliated for in the eighth by throwing out Kendry Morales, also at second base). Two more humiliating runs scored in the top of the ninth on consecutive two-out, bases-loaded walks.

The M's have one more shot at the Angels, but kids, that's a Statement.

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Labels: angels, mariners, sweep, wow

I have nothing more to say about the $8M the Dodgers will pick up here, other than to repeat those sentiments already voiced by Andrew Grant at True Blue LA:

Why does our roster get filled with proven veterans? They aren't nearly as much of a risk as rookies. Coming into this season, many people thought that there was very little difference between Nomar Garciaparra and James Loney, yet Ned went with the proven veteran because it represented less of a risk. Maybe James Loney wouldn't be able to hit big league pitching, who knows? Nomar had been there before, and we knew what he would do. Somewhat ironically, Nomar has proved to be a much bigger risk than Loney ever could be.

By this metric, Loaiza and his injury-pocked season are less of a risk than playing Eric Stults and finding out what he can be. As Jon ably points out, this certainly means Randy Wolf is done as a Dodger. It's hard not to agree with Andrew's closing:

A good GM needs to be bold. A good GM needs to take risks. If you just sit there and make safe acquisitions all day, you just turn the game into an auction for overvalued talent, and that's a game that no team but the Yankees can win. Until Ned Colletti starts making moves that have some chance at upside with some risk attached, we'll be watching the same type of mediocrity we've been accustomed to the last 20 years.

Labels: athletics, dodgers, transactions

News

The Travs' new ballpark has won the Ballpark of the Year award from baseballparks.com. I haven't been to it since they completed construction, but hope to get out there next year.

Scores

I didn't get to the Dodgers at all unfortunately; I have a flat tire I've gotta take care of, and still haven't walked the dogs.

Labels: minors

Wow. An epic collapse, a slow-and-steady comeback, a lead erased, and a sudden, late-innings offensive outburst to grab a four-game lead in the AL West.

It's almost too dizzying to think about.

Look, Santana's implosion was hardly unexpected. No, this isn't his last appearance in an Angels uniform, because Salt Lake's schedule has only a week or so to go. What happens, he gets one Sunday start and comes back up? Would that fix him? Of course not. That's a subject for next year, but he's almost certainly out of the rotation after this game. He gave up a leadoff triple to Ichiro, and that really set the tone, for he only made his first out after facing six batters, ultimately giving up four runs on two triples, a double, a single, and two walks.

The Angels, of course, have seen five-run deficits before and not flinched, and in the postseason, too. But first they needed to shut down the Mariners and stop the bleeding. To rescue rode Dustin Moseley, whose 54-pitch, 5.1-inning game was nothing short of miraculous, facing the minimum in three different innings. As a result, Moseley is expected to return to the rotation as the Angels' fifth starter.

Meantime, the Angels girded themselves to the task of getting back in the game, a job started by Howie Kendrick's leadoff walk in the third. Jeff Mathis followed that up by plunking a single into right, but Jose Guillen then made one of those mistakes that Angels baseball is supposed to induce. With Kendrick breaking for third, Guillen's throw was offline and ended up ricocheting up into left field foul territory, and Howie tore off running for home, scoring the Angels' first run.

The Angels posted two more in the fourth on consecutive two-out homers by Gary Matthews, Jr. and Kendry Morales, two of the Angels' switch-hitters taking Jeff Weaver deep into the right-field bleachers. In the bottom half of the frame, Jeff Mathis threw out Kenji Johjima trying to steal, one of two baserunners caught stealing in the game. More impressive was his throwdown on Ichiro in the seventh: had Ichiro succeeded, the Mariners would have had their speediest baserunner in scoring position with their second-best average hitter at the plate. As it turned out, Jose Vidro struck out to end the frame with the score tied 6-6.

Matthews led off the eighth with a single followed by a stolen base where, as yesterday, he somehow missed a tag, and wouldn't you know it but Kendry cashed him in with a ball walloped in the gap. What ensued was an epic collapse of the Mariners' bullpen, perhaps partly due to poor usage: Brandon Morrow, recently struggling, then walked and singled the bases loaded. Rick White, who's been tough on Vlad (2-for-12 career), came in only to deliver a two-out, two-run RBI single. That apparently rattled him, because White then uncorked a wild pitch that advanced Orlando Cabrera and Vlad to third and second respectively. Who else but the Angels' Mr. Clutch, Maicer Izturis, came through with yet another RBI single to push OCab across, though it ultimately meant Vlad got caught at the plate.

And that, really, was the ballgame. Justin Speier was leaky but effective enough; Scot Shields put up another good game with two zero frames. Vlad went 4-for-5 with three RBIs, Kendry Morales went 3-for-5 hitting in the seven hole, missing the cycle by a triple, and even Jeff Mathis went 2-for-3. The sum product of all that offense is that the Angels get some real breathing room in the division race. The M's, on the other hand, have to contend with a 5-3 Yankees win that edges the Mariners to only one game atop the Wild Card standings. As Rex put it in the postgame wrap, tomorrow the Angels go for the juggler. I'm not sure what that means, but I like the sound of it.

Recap • Yahoo Box

Labels: angels, mariners, recaps

Dan Evans, Astros GM?

Richard Justice in the Houston Chronicle seems to think so:

Evans knows personnel, and more importantly, he has been around winning organizations. He knows how to construct one. He knows how to put a productive minor league system together.

He was dismissed after two years in Los Angeles when ownership asked him to make Draconian cuts in their player development system. In those two years, he brought in some of the best scouting and development people in the game.

The franchise's overall talent level increased from 28th to first in that time. The core of young talent the Dodgers are running out there today is a tribute to the work done by Evans. And he did something else in his short time on the job. He surrounded himself with around a dozen former managers and general managers.

That leaves me just about speechless. Clearly, in at least one market, Dan Evans' career timeout is over with, especially when a major metropolitan newspaper writes so glowingly about a GM who wasn't even on the deck when his team made the postseason (and still did remarkably little once there). Either Justice hasn't been paying much attention or is in "anybody-but-the-incumbent" mode, which, according to a co-worker who is a big Astros fan, wouldn't be too hard to understand. Now, I'm as big a defender of Evans as you'll find on this planet, and even I am not of the opinion that the 2004 team that won the division was exclusively his doing. The real question is: will Evans be allowed to wear pink polo shirts without the local media trashing him?

(Via BTF.)

Roster Notes

• The Dodgers interested in Esteban Loiaza?
• Chris Resop will have arthroscopic surgery to remove a bone spur from his elbow and will miss the rest of the season, duh.
• Kelvim Escobar has been pitching through patellar tendinitis, but you coulda fooled me.
• Chone Figgins won't be able to return to service until next week at least.
• Casey Kotchman is swinging a bat off a tee, and might return as early as Saturday against Texas.
• Milton Bradley failing to run one out?

  Milton Bradley went 2-for-3 with a solo homer Monday versus the Diamondbacks.
  Bradley's homer hit off the rail on top of the fence in right field at Petco. Bradley thought it was a homer off the bat, so he wasn't running particularly hard initially. However, after it came back on the field of play, it bounced about 30 feet away from the right fielder, which could have given Bradley a chance at an inside-the-parker had he been busting it around the bases. Instead, he stopped at third base and only later realized the first-base ump had called it a homer. Fortunately for the Padres, his lack of hustle didn't play a role tonight.

  Say it ain't so...
• Did you know that Byung-Hyun Kim is back in a Marlins uniform? Me, either...

Labels: angels, astros, athletics, dodgers, injuries, marlins, padres, transactions

From today's Under The Knife (all emphasis mine):

• As the Dodgers fade from the chase, I'm not sure if they can't look back to the trade deadline as where it all went horribly wrong. The front office issues have shaken Tommy Lasorda loose from his career of talking Cubs fans out of trees and back into a more active role, according to several sources. "He's Tom Hagen now," I was told.

  On the field, the problems revolve around finding offense. They won't get it with Nomar Garciaparra. While he could come off the DL mid-week by rule, the calf strain will take a lot longer to heal. He's not running yet and there's some suggestion that if the team falls much further out of the race, Garciaparra will be shut down in order to free up some at-bats for younger players in September.

• The Angels have had a bushel basket of injuries in a lot of UTKs this season so why should this busy weekend be different? Juan Rivera should be back when rosters expand, though his running is no better, which makes him a bench player and occasional DH at best. Bartolo Colon was effective, but a bit wild, in his first rehab start. One observer called him "not close" to a return. Chone Figgins is going to miss at least a couple more days with wrist problems. Surprisingly, throwing is as much a problem as hitting for the wrist. Casey Kotchman will lose time after a hand injury. While he won't go to the DL, Kendry Morales figures to pick up a lot of playing time. The Angels have seen how much a hand injury can affect a batter for the next month and they have the Mariners in their mirror. Finally, Mike Napoli is about a week away from restarting his rehab. The Angels' Salt Lake affiliate looks to make the PCL playoffs, so Napoli will likely be there by the weekend.

Labels: angels, dodgers, injuries

News

It's that time of the week, so hold on...

• The GCL Dodgers have completed their season and earned a bye in the first round because of their victory Monday. The Dodgers will face the winner of the Twins/Yankees contest scheduled for later today, with a three-game final series. The GCL has changed a bit from last year in that teams play strictly within the divisions before the postseason, so no team would have seen the opponent's pitching.
• Here's the weekly MILB.com wrap post. Normally I don't comment on these further, but seeing as how we're so close to the end of the season I thought it might be appropriate to look at how the individual teams are doing:
  • In the Pacific Coast League, the Las Vegas 51's are in the cellar of the Pacific Southern division and out of contention. The Salt Lake Bees are winning the Pacific Northern division, though they have yet to clinch.
  • Texas League: The Angels' Arkansas franchise is in second place in the North division, two and a half games back of Springfield with a week to go. Incidental note: Brok Butcher missed a start Sunday with shoulder tendinitis.
  • Southern League: Jacksonville is currently two and a half games back of Montgomery for the second half division trophy.
  • California League: Rancho Cucamonga and Inland Empire are eight and nine games back of South division leader Lancaster, in third and fourth place respectively. The division leading JetHawks (the Red Sox' Cal League franchise) just set a Cal League single-season team home run record.
  • Midwest League: Cedar Rapids is 37-26 in the second half and in second place in the Eastern division, while Great Lakes is 19-42 and eliminated in that same division.
  • Pioneer League: Orem (15-12) and Ogden (10-17) are in second and third place respectively in the South division, with Orem trailing division leader Idaho Falls by three games. Orem has 11 games to go, five of them against Idaho Falls and six against Ogden. Ogden's schedule isn't quite as accommodating in that the division leader isn't in their remaining schedule, consisting of five with Casper and six with Orem.
• Baseball Prospectus has a nice two part interview with former Angels bench coach (and current Devil Rays manager) Joe Maddon.
• Angels Win has an ongoing dialogue with Angels scouting director Eddie Bane.
• Arizona Fall League rosters have been announced. The Angels are sending the following players to the Surprise Rafters this year:
  • From high-A Rancho Cucamonga, OF Chris Pettit.
  • From AA Arkansas: RHPs David Austen, Darren O'Day, Fernando Rodriguez, Von Stertzbach, and SS Sean Rodriguez.
  • From AAA Salt Lake: C Ben Johnson
  The Dodgers will send the following players to the Peoria Saguaros:
  • From high-A Inland Empire: INF Ivan DeJesus
  • From AA Jacksonville: RHPs Zach Hammes, Justin Orenduff, Cory Wade; INF Blake Dewitt; OF Xavier Paul.
  • From AAA Las Vegas: LHPs Greg Miller, Wesley Wright
• Clayton Kershaw is the highest ranked Angel or Dodger prospect in this week's Prospect Hot Sheet:

  3. Clayton Kershaw, lhp, Double-A Jacksonville (Dodgers) Kershaw skipped high Class A after going 7-5, 2.77 with a 134-50 strikeout-walk ratio in 97 innings at low Class A Great Lakes. And while the seventh overall pick in 2006 went through some predictable growing pains early on in Double-A, he's locked in now.

  Last week, the 19-year-old lefty went 1-0, 0.69 with 18 strikeouts in 14 innings.

• No Angel or Dodger prospect was Player of the Week. Clayton Kershaw of Jacksonville and Sean O'Sullivan of Cedar Rapids both won Pitcher of the Week.

Scores

Labels: minors

There was a moment in the eighth after Ichiro struck out that for me defined the tenor of the game from Seattle's standpoint. After Ichiro swung and missed a ball in the dirt, Jeff Mathis briefly lost the ball — not by a lot, but enough — and the Mariners' centerfielder jogged to first. Jogged, that is, not ran. I don't know about how he's feeling physically; maybe he's nursing a hamstring pull, or maybe it's just late in the season, but it seemed to me that if he runs full out, he maybe forces Mathis into making a throwing error and reaches first base.

Pretty clearly, he figured it wasn't worth it. The M's had barely made anything happen all game; the closest they came was in the third with Ichiro and Jose Vidro on third and second respectively with two out, itself the subject of an interesting sidebar. Coming into the game having lost their last two games to Texas, and apparently getting screwed on a safe call at second earlier in the game (replays showed Gary Matthews, Jr. safe, though the radio announcers said he should have been called out), nothing was going right for the M's. The Angels were getting too many breaks and the Mariners weren't getting timely hits. More, their obvious team leader was demoralized.

Back, briefly, to the bottom of the third. The key play was Jose Vidro grounding out to Kendry Morales with men on the corners. Kendry took a fairly big chance and threw the ball to the plate to preserve the shutout. This allowed both runners to advance to second and third, but with two outs. It's not the first time I've seen Kendry take a chance on a play to improve the Angels' situation; his defense is often surprising, and by that I mean in a good way. More than once I've seen him try for a 3-6-3 or a 3-6-1 double play and make it work. Kotchman's overall package is just terrific: he's a smooth, agile defender in all aspects, but there are times when you see Kendry take a chance that you just know Kotchman wouldn't, and that play might have been one of those times.

The Angels took a lead on Garret Anderson's leadoff homer in the third and never looked back. Anderson, in fact, ended up with three RBIs in the game, two more in the third with the bases loaded on what was ultimately ruled a ground-rule double because of fan interference. (Incidentally, has anyone else noticed that GA's average with runners in scoring position has crept up to .229 over the last couple weeks?) The Angels put together a suicide squeeze off Jeff Mathis in the fourth, and scored twice in the sixth, once on Kendry's RBI single and another time on a wild pitch by Bautista.

Finally, Lackey turned the ship around in a big way following two straight losses to the Red Sox and Yankees, posting a dominant complete-game shutout, his second complete game of the year. He looked for the world like that 2.91 ERA Lackey who showed up in the first half. A great, great outing at exactly the time the Angels needed it. The Angels now sport a three-game lead in the AL West, and can do no worse than a one-game lead at the end of the series should they drop the other two games.

Update: Lackey was playing through a case of strep throat.

Recap • Yahoo Box

Labels: angels, mariners, recaps

I just don't get midseason managerial firings; either the team is working or it is not, and nine times out of ten it's the GM that needs to be canned. (Jim Tracy needed to go, but that was at least handled in the offseason.) Regardless, the Astros have fired both GM Tim Purpura and manager Phil Garner, which means Tal Smith and Cecil Cooper get those jobs with the word "interim" stuck in the middle. Longer term, that may mean more requests to talk to Angels personnel about these apparently open jobs; I wonder whether Grady Little will get extended by the Dodgers, or might end up in Houston's consideration as the "most likely veteran candidate" role.

Labels: astros, transactions

One of my less-proud moments, true, but, hey, Seitz, you've been nothing but a provocateur all season. I'm not allowed, apparently, to suggest the Angels are anything less than a playoff team. Also, please show exactly where I've "misappl[ied] another SABR stat or use[d] your typical multiple endpoints to prove it", because if you're talking about this, I still maintain that we don't know whether Kotchman can hit lefties (and the recent evidence was encouraging). But since you don't feel compelled to provide anything besides personal attacks (one of the defining hallmarks of so many of the posters over at Halos Heaven, what a surprise), I imagine I'll be waiting a long time for that response. Insist on reading things into my posts if you like. (I was "interesting to read", apparently, until I started disagreeing with the groupthink.) It's just amazing how quickly the Angels blogosphere has declined into the kind of name-calling schoolyard that chased me off the fan forums three years ago.

Labels: angels, meta

Boomer, Not Bust: Dodgers 6, Mets 2

Sure, David Wells' first outing as a Dodger didn't even net him a quality start, but who's complaining when the Dodgers managed to salvage a victory out of it? I followed the game loosely while at the theater watching The Bourne Ultimatum (heck of a good spy thriller, by the way), and found myself shocked to discover the win after I got out. The Dodgers aren't going anywhere this year, but it's good to see something positive come out of the Wells signing.

Yahoo Box

Roster Notes

• Casey Kotchman will start swinging the bat in the next couple of days.
• Bartolo Colon will make his next rehab start on Thursday with the Bees, and is feeling no ill effects from his prior start.
• The Angels will face Edinson Volquez next Saturday at home.

Labels: angels, dodgers, injuries, mets, recaps

Labels: minors