Tagged: Mike Scioscia
Saunders hacks away
Even though Angels skipper Mike Scioscia has left a distinct impression that he doesn’t want his pitchers swinging the bat this spring in National League parks, Joe Saunders apparently couldn’t resist.
Following a triple to the left-center gap by fleet Peter Bourjos with two outs in the second inning Saturday, Saunders went the other way on an Aaron Heilman delivery and slapped it into left field for an RBI single.
Saunders, an exceptional golfer from the right side, swings the bat left-handed, as he does everything else. Joe got more exercise than he bargained for when Chone Figgins followed with his second double of the day, to the same left-center gap Bourjos hit. Third-base coach Dino Ebel wisely held Saunders at third, and he stayed there when Reggie Willits fouled out to left.
Figgins also had a hand in a textbook relay in the second inning, cutting down Milton Bradley at third. Terry Evans ran down Bradley’s drive into the right-field corner and hit cutoff man Sean Rodriguez, who threw a one-hop bullet from shallow right that Figgins snagged on one hop, applying the tag on Bradley.
Rodriguez demonstrated his exceptional range later in the inning when he went behind second to backhand a grounder by Esteban German and nail him at first with an off-balance throw.
In his second at-bat leading off the fourth inning, Saunders was clearly back with the program. He didn’t take a swing, looking at a third strike.
Abreu update
Bobby Abreu, playing right field and batting third, walked and struck out twice in Venezuela’s 3-1 decision over the Netherlands on Saturday in Miami in the second round of the World Baseball Classic.
Abreu, through five Classic games, is batting .313 with a .389 on-base percentage and .563 slugging percentage. He has a homer and three RBIs. Abreu was hitting .333 in four Cactus League games with the Angels before joining Team Venezuela.
“We should get him back for at least seven or eight [preseason] games,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said of Abreu, who is expected to share left field and the DH job with Juan Rivera. “That should be enough time to integrate him into the offense.”
Former Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez registered a four-out save for Venezuela against the Netherlands, yielding one hit while striking out a pair of hitters. K-Rod hasn’t given up a run in three Classic appearances.
Escobar passes another test
Under the watchful eyes of Angels pitching coach Mike Butcher, veteran right-hander Kelvim Escobar cleared another big hurdle on Sunday with relative ease.
Throwing his first full bullpen session — he’d thrown from 55 feet earlier — from a Tempe mound, Escobar unleashed 25 fastballs in natural form. Butcher was as delighted as the pitcher with the latest evidence of his remarkable recovery from right shoulder surgery last July. Escobar tweaked his left calf doing exercises a week ago, but there was no residual pain, and he was free and easy with his delivery.
“He was outstanding,” Butcher said. “The ball came out of his hand real well. He threw all fastballs, and the ball was located well down in the zone. No complaints at all. He looks very natural to me.
“You can tell when he’s confident by his facial expression, the way he’s talking. It was there. It’s one step at a time, but he definitely came into camp in tremendous shape, and that helps. He’s a guy you never have to push. He’s always pushing himself.”
That brings us to the one concern: keeping Escobar from trying to do too much too soon. He is being closely monitored by manager Mike Scioscia, Butcher and the medical staff on a daily basis.
The early prognosis was a return around midseason by Escobar. It is now possible he’ll be back on the mound in a Major League game sometime in May.
Napoli passes shoulder test
Mike Napoli was beaming on Friday morning even before he saw the lineup card for the game against the Rockies featuring his name in the No. 4 slot as the Angels’ designated hitter.
Daybreak brought good news. Napoli woke feeling no pain in his right shoulder after testing it for the first time on Thursday since undergoing arthroscopic surgery in late October, cleaning up a little mess that had cost him a month of the second half.
“I threw 70, 75 feet, around 20, 25 times,” Napoli said. “It went well, and I’m not even sore today. I was a little worried how I’d feel when I got up, but it was fine, no pain.
“The last time I threw was the last game last season, so it’s been a while. I feel strong.”
Even if he’s not ready to cut loose with enough velocity to catch by the season opener on April 6, Napoli wants to make the 25-man roster as a DH until he’s ready to go behind the plate.
Manager Mike Scioscia has maintained that roster flexibility would go into that decision, which would force the club to carry a third catcher — Bobby Wilson or Ryan Budde — to back up Jeff Mathis.
Fuentes offers a preview
It was a glimpse of things to come for Angels fans: Brian Fuentes, facing lefty-swinging Eric Chavez with two on and one out, and down goes Chavez swinging. When another southpaw swinger, Jack Cust, flied to left, Fuentes was out of a jam he’d created for himself with a pair of one-out singles.
Fuentes is the closer, but we can expect to see him in eighth-inning situations occasionally such as this along the way: two on, tough lefty bats coming up. He sees himself as a closer who doesn’t mind coming in for an out now and then in the eighth — as long as he gets to finish. Fuentes gives Mike Scioscia a feared southpaw specialist. As good as Darren Oliver has been, that’s not who he is. Oliver is just as effective against right-handed hitters as lefties, and he’s a guy you want in games for at least an inning.
The Angels’ bullpen will have a different look this season with what Fuentes provides. Scioscia won’t hesitate to let Scot Shields or Jose Arredondo close games if necessary on occasion –the former domain of K-Rod and K-Rod only.
Too many good players
It’s a nice problem to have, of course, but you have to wonder what it’s like to be Matt Brown, looking around the Angels’ clubhouse, wondering where you fit.
You were a star on the bronze medal-winning Team USA outfit in the Beijing Games last summer. You crushed the ball at Triple-A Salt Lake — again. You added some versatility, learning how to play first base. No less an authority than Reggie Smith, Team USA’s hitting coach, touted you as a Major League talent — and Reggie is not a man to throw praise around randomly.
You know you can play, and yet you wonder where, and how it can happen. Chone Figgins is at third, your natural position, and behind him is Brandon Wood. One of Wood’s teammates coming up through the farm system with him assured me that this guy “will just blow up if he ever gets a chance to play every day.” So, if you’re Matt Brown, 26 and waiting for your time, you wonder if it will ever come.
Kendry Morales has been given first base, and the guy can rake. Behind him is Robb Quinlan, who has a .285 career average in the Majors and must also wonder where he’ll fit in as a role player yet again. Matt Brown: third at third, third at first.
There are others who work out every day, preparing for a long season, and leave camp every afternoon wondering what’s in store. Reggie Willits, for example. He was fifth in the AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2007, a major contributor to the Angels’ success, and he’s sixth in line for a outfield job. Depth is a great thing if you’re a manager or a GM, but if you’re an athlete burning to play at the highest level, convinced you can make good things happen, and have names on top of yours on the depth chart . . . you sit and wait. And wonder.
Too many good players. A nice problem for Arte Moreno and Mike Scioscia and Tony Reagins, but not such a great thing if you’re Matt Brown, Robb Quinlan, Reggie Willits, Freddy Sandoval, Terry Evans and all the others on the outside looking in.
Abbott, Langston visit camp
The Angels welcomed two of their best and most popular pitchers in franchise history — Jim Abbott and Mark Langston — to camp on Monday, to interact with the younger athletes and enrich them with the club’s rich tradition.
“These guys were terrific pitchers,” manager Mike Scioscia said. “Even more, they’re terrific people. We’re excited to have them interact with our pitchers, especially the young pitchers. Sometimes a pitcher thinks he’s on an island; that’s not the case. It’s great to have those guys here.”
Scioscia said another great Angels lefty, Chuck Finley, will make an appearance along with Tim Salmon and Bobby Grich. Don Baylor, who spent time with the team last spring, is busy in his new role as a coach for the Rockies.
Scioscia, who spent his Dodgers youth getting to know legends such as Roy Campanella, John Roseboro and Sandy Koufax at Dodgertown, has been trying to connect his players with those who preceded them in the Angels’ colorful tradition.
Joe Saunders, who emerged as an All-Star last season after battling Ervin Santana for a spot in the rotation in the spring, is the latest in a long line of superb — and occasionally eccentric — Angels southpaw starters. It all began with the inimitable Bo Belinski of no-hit and extracurricular fame, followed by the superb Clyde Wright and remarkably gifted Frank Tanana.
Few teams in history have had a better trio of lefties in the same rotation than Abbott, Finley and Langston from 1990-92. They were a combined 55-28 in ’91 — Langston winning 19, Finley and Abbott 18 apiece — for a club that finished 81-81.
PECOTA trashes Angels
If manager Mike Scioscia needed any ammo to fire up his troops, it was grooved like a Doc Gooden fastball at the belt by stat maven Nate Silver in his PECOTA ratings for Baseball Prospectus.
Silver, it turns out, doesn’t think much of the Halos — specifically, what he sees as an aging offense creating more headaches for Angels pitchers than rival managers. PECOTA has the Angels finishing 16 games off their MLB-best 2008 pace with a mere 84 wins, barely managing to prevail in what it envisions as a weak AL West.
I can understand some anticipated slippage with Mark Teixeira and Garret Anderson departing; those are two high-quality offensive players. But Bobby Abreu has been a fairly consistent 100/100 man (runs. RBIs), and he should fit nicely between Chone Figgins and Vladimir Guerrero in Scioscia’s projected top third. Of course, a big spring by Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar or Maicer Izturis could convince Scioscia to plant Abreu in the No. 3 hole, with Guerrero fourth and Torii Hunter fifth.
The rest of the lineup is deep and potentially much more explosive than PECOTA imagines. Mike Napoli has the tools to go 30/100 with enough at-bats, joining Guerrero on a surgically-repaired knee, and Hunter, Kendry Morales, Juan Rivera all are capable of exceeding 20 homers with 80 to 100 RBIs. If Hunter bats fourth, behind Vlad, he could surpass his career high of 107 RBIs from 2007.
Call me an incurable optimist, but this shapes up as a pretty fair attack — and it has a nice blend of youth and experience, top to bottom.
It was last year at this time that a lot of snipers were relegating the Angels to second place in the AL West behind Seattle, with its new ace, Erik Bedard. Scioscia, I’m sure, got some clubhouse mileage out of that. I’m sure PECOTA and its views might surface in one of his pre-game chats with the players before too long.
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