Lackey could bounce back soon
There will be no immediate relief for Angels ace John Lackey after his two-pitch nightmare on Saturday. The only thing manager Mike Scioscia was sure about on Sunday was his big ace wouldn’t be in the bullpen before he makes his next start.
When that start will be is the question Scioscia refrained from answering, mainly because he doesn’t know yet how quickly and how well Lackey’s arm will respond.
“We’ll probably fold him in earlier [than scheduled on Thursday in Seattle],” Scioscia said “It could tomorrow, the next day. We’ll see how he feels.”
Matt Palmer is scheduled to start the first of four games against the Mariners on Monday night. If Lackey gets the call, Palmer, Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders each would be pushed back a day.
Lackey on Saturday said he’d volunteer to go to the bullpen if asked, but Scioscia doesn’t feel his relief staff is taxed to that point. Lackey has made one relief appearance in his career, in 2004.
Lackey said he was “shocked” when he got ejected after two pitches to Rangers leadoff man Ian Kinsler, the first behind his back, the second in his left side. Lackey said he was having trouble getting his two-seam fastball to reach the inside part of home plate after missing six weeks with his right forearm strain.
rallymonkeys 
It was interesting that he was thrown out after only 2 pitches, considering that he was just coming back from the DL. Do you think that if it were a different player that Lackey was throwing at, that the results would have been different?
Julia
http://werbiefitz.mlblogs.com/
OK, as a Rangers fan, we fans were pretty shocked at Lackey. How could a MLB team allow a pitcher to come back off the DL if he wasn’t ready? Didn’t he have any warm-up pitches?
You can say what you want, but we don’t think a major league pitcher can pitch behind a player, and then hit him, and then say it wasn’t intentional.
I don’t want to cause a rift or anything either… but i don’t think its fair to use excuses like he hasn’t pitched in six weeks or he wasn’t ready to pitch. He pitched in at least two minor league games before he came back up to the Angel’s roster so it’s not like he hasn’t thrown a baseball in six weeks and he just stepped on the mound. Plus, if you watch the replay it shows that he shook off the first pitch away and low, and threw on the high and inside pitch and he stayed focused on his target the entire time. So i think it is very hard to say that he was not being intentional at throwing behind Kinsler and then hitting him, especially with the history between the two teams.