Two years ago, baseball took its scheduling out of the hands of the
mom-and-pop operation that had done the job for 24 years, trusting a computer program to do a better job. That software would seem to still
have a human hand
guiding it, as evidenced by the careful attention to such details as
ensuring rematches of World Series past: this year, we had Cubs
vs. Tigers (1935 WS), White Sox vs. Reds (1919 WS),
Dodgers vs. A's (1974 and 1988 WS) — and a rematch of the 2002
Series, in Angels vs. Giants.
A lot's changed since 2002: both teams have had their offensive cores
age, hitting the Angels hardest, with Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad,
and Tim Salmon all suffering steep declines. Teams pitch to Barry
Bonds now. Similarly, both teams have absorbed young talent, to mixed
success: the Angels successes include catcher Mike Napoli, starting
pitcher Jered Weaver (unfortunately sent back down upon the return of
Bartolo Colón), and to some degree, the return of Dallas
McPherson, in his third major league season, but yet without a full
year of playing time under his belt.
In this series, the Giants featured youth in the guises of 25-year-old
lefthander Noah Lowry and 21-year-old righty Matt Cain. Inbetween, Team
Halloween started Matt Morris, the veteran right-hander. But regardless of who was on the mound for the opposition, the story was sadly the same as it's been throughout most of this year: all told,
the Angels hit an anemic .224 against Giants pitching in the series.
Way more after the jump...
The team's inability to hit stems from several sources:
- Garret Anderson is struggling with the bat this year, and he can no longer hit lefties well.
- The team is having a hard time settling on roles for players like Chone Figgins, and earlier in the year, callup
Howie Kendrick, who was essentially expected to learn how to play
third base at the major league level, all the while squeezing in plate time as a platoon partner for Adam Kennedy against lefties.
- The rookies are going through their learning process, and that often means 0-20 slumps.
- In interleague, the team couldn't avail itself of perma-DH Tim Salmon's bat in a National League park.
In addition, the Angels packed their infamously leaden gloves for the
road, giving up a run-scoring error in the first game of the series,
though mercifully not in the other two. Adequate offense would
help the team by calming down the pitching staff (the entire rotation,
it seems, is being cheated out of wins because the offense has
stalled), and possibly even the players themselves.Following the 1-2 series against the Giants, the talk
of late is Bill Stoneman executing a mid-season trade for a big bat,
but none of the options look good. The
Angels were supposed to have hard-hitting talent just under the
surface in Salt Lake, but outside of Napoli, it hasn't worked out that way.
Talk of another callup for Howie Kendrick has also returned; Kendrick,
hitting just under .400 at AAA, could be a good addition to the club,
provided he's allowed to stick in one position. But given how deep
the team's offensive problems are, one big bat won't help this lineup
much. The team may be very
close to throwing the season away, and playing for 2007.
