By default, Angels win AL West trade deadline

The Oakland Athletics over-reached at the trade deadline by dealing Yoenis Cespedes to the Boston Red Sox for Jon Lester. To marginally improve their pitching rotation, the A's tore a huge piece out of their offensive and defensive teams. The Angels, who made less spectacular moves to address a real need, stand to benefit.

Yoenis Cespedes on Jackie Robinson Day in 2012. With Thursday's deadline trade, Cespedes now is subtracted from the Oakland Athletics batting order (hj_west [original], UCinternational [crop]/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

It's certainly an odd state of discourse when the team with the best record in baseball trades its best player and the move is widely praised as a sign that said team is "all in" for a bid to win the World Series.

This journal holds a contrary opinion of Thursday's biggest deadline trade, in which the Oakland Athletics sent left fielder Yoenis Cespedes and a 2015 Competitive Balance Draft pick to the Boston Red Sox for left-hander Jon Lester and left fielder Jonny Gomes. We believe the happiest people in baseball right now, perhaps even the winners of the mid-summer trading season, are the squires of Anaheim, who not only hauled nicely by themselves, but watched their upstate rivals actually make themselves less potent.

The Los Angeles Angels now are two games behind the Athletics in the American League West, but these are the two clubs with the best records in the Major Leagues, and their race to determine which will open the playoffs in a best-of-five series and which will enter a one-game wildcard game stands to be the hottest of the next two months.

To this day, Oakland general manager Billy Beane hasn't won the World Championship any more times than anyone else in the world, and we suspect it will remain that way when all the shouting ends in October. There's no question that Lester, now 10-7 with a 2.52 ERA, makes the front of the Oakland pitching rotation stronger. The Athletics also augmented their rotation, though not really all that much, with their trade earlier in July to bring in pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for Dan Straily and minor leaguers Billy McKinney and Addison Russell.

Looking at the Oakland rotation now, we might set it up with Lester (3.0 WAR in 2014) in front, followed by Sonny Gray (3.0), Scott Kazmir (3.3), Samardzija (2.2 with the Cubs and 0.5 with the A's) and Jesse Chavez (1.1), which leaves out Hammel (3.3 with the Cubs and -0.9 with the A's). That's if they maximally use all the pitchers who they have picked up in their July trades. Just looking at WAR values, they're better off going through the regular season than when they began 2014 with a rotation of Gray, Kazmir, Jesse Chavez (1.1), Straily (-0.2) and Tommy Milone (0.8). Basically, two wins better over two-thirds of a regular season, and another win better if that holds in the final third.

During the postseason, though, when rotation depth isn't such an advantage, it's a different story. For a club trying to win in the postseason, power pitching is indispensable. Rotation depth is not. Indeed, rotation depth is little if any advantage. That's why we did not advocate that the Dodgers trade prospects just so they could have a stronger No. 4 or No. 5 starter. It just doesn't help. Your club really needs three strong starters. Your No. 4 probably gets one start in a seven-game series. Your No. 5 doesn't appear at all. And, should the management decide to use Nos. 4 and 5 more than that in the postseason, then it is taking starts away from the front three, which is utterly self-defeating.

So, the A's stand to front their postseason rotation with Lester, Gray and Kazmir, their best three guys. Where does Samardzija fit in? Two starts, maybe three, even if the A's last deep into the World Series? And now Chavez, who has been quite good, falls out of the postseason mix. To what end?

It appears that by adding Lester and subtracting Cespedes (3.0 WAR in 2014), the Athletics have made themselves better on one of every five days during the regular season (and one of every three or four days during the postseason), but subtracting that impact hitter and impact defender in left field has made them worse on the other days. It simply isn't obvious that removing Cespedes from the lineup so Lester can pitch instead of Chavez makes the Athletics better equipped to survive in the postseason.

The Athletics already had the second-best ERA (3.19) and the second-best ERA-plus (119) in the American League. The Athletics are good at everything. They lead the AL by scoring 5.0 runs per game and their OPS-plus of 107 is fourth in the AL. It appears though, that the A's have made their pitching marginally better while really taking a huge piece from their offensive and defensive teams.

The Athletics, without Cespedes, really don't have that many bats. Their other hitters who have been to the plate 150 or more times and are with or ahead of the league (100 OPS-plus or better) are Brandon Moss (135), Josh Donaldson (123), Coco Crisp (123), Derek Norris (148), John Jaso (132) and Stephen Vogt (155). But those last three are all catchers, which means that, on their best days, the A's will have four guys in the lineup who hit and five who don't. Taking Cespedes out of that batting order is going to hurt.

And that's to say nothing of the depletion of player value through the organization. Cespedes is under contract for 2015, but Lester is not, Samardjzia is eligible for arbitration in 2015, and Hammel probably isn't much worth worrying about either way. The A's also traded away McKinney and Russell, 19- and 20-year-old kids prospering at high-A and AA ball, where they are well under-aged, along with a nice draft pick. 

It just looks dicey from here. Of course, pitching is the most important aspect of any baseball team. The defense has the ball in baseball, and if the pitcher can put it where he wants it, the other club won't score. But trading that draft pick and a middle-of-the-order producer like Cespedes, a game-changing player, for two months of the difference between pitching Lester or Chavez -- it's a stretch.

The Angels were quite active during the trading season, as well. But they gave up nothing that they will miss to address a true weakness on their club, their bullpen. They have added Joe Thatcher, Jason Grilli and Huston Street -- basically rebuilt their entire bullpen -- for players who they don't stand to miss now or in the future. Thatcher gives them a hard-throwing lefty they needed, Street gives them an accomplished closer they needed, and Grilli, who also is an accomplished closer, gives them a nice option to go with Joe Smith in the eighth inning. The Angels never seemed to be sold on Ernesto Frieri as their closer, so they dealt him to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Grilli. They gave up nothing about which to be jittery for Thatcher. To get Street, they had to part with minor-league second baseman Taylor Lindsey, but they have a good minor-league second baseman behind him in Alex Yarbrough.

In total, during the trading season, the Athletics picked up more major league talent, but they also gave up a lot more major league talent. The Angels made themselves better in a way that they really needed without giving up anything. The A's made themselves marginally better in ways that weren't really necessary, and they tore the heart out of their everyday lineup while putting a fair dent in their prospect pipeline.

It says here that the Angels won the trading deadline in this division simply because the Athletics over-reached, as contenders often do at the trading deadline. The next two month will test some of that claim. But the real test will come a month later.

The Angels according to WAR

The statistical confection known as Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has become something of a new religion among a certain strain of baseball fans. As such, it requires a leap of faith, which some of us aren't quite willing to take. Here's what WAR says about the Angels in 2013.

According to WAR, Angels pitchers are considerably better than they were last season, and Scott Downs, in particular, is about five times as good (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Angels have become a dangerous team since this season's terrible start, which was even worse than last year's terrible start. It remains that, at 43-45, they are well behind the pace of last year's outfit, which finished 89-73. At the rate that the Angels have won through their first 88 games, they would finish 79-83.

Again, though, the Angels started this year 15-27. Since then, they are 28-18. If they can keep playing at that 28-18 pace (a .609 percentage), they would finish 88-74, which gets them very close to the present pace for the Tampa Bay Rays, who are 50-40 and positioned for the second wild card at 90-72.

The question before us is this: Considering that the Angels, taking the first 88 games in total, are paced to finish ten games worse than they finished last year, what is that difference? How, specifically, are the Angels ten games behind last year's rate of victory?

Like many other commentators, we're intrigued by Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as a way to measure specific player contributions to winning games. Unlike many of those same commentators, who talk as though WAR should be the last word on important questions like a player's worthiness for the Hall of Fame or a Most Valuable Player award, we're not sold on WAR. We're still kicking the tires and checking under the hood.

A check under the hood involves a critique of the methodology, a critical look at the assumptions involved in working out the formula for determining WAR. Tire kicking involves putting certain questions to WAR and seeing how it answers. What follows is an exercise in tire kicking.

Baseball-reference.com (insert deep bow here) bases WAR on the assumption that a team composed entirely of "replacement" players, players of the "4A" type who are easily available to every team, would win 48 games in a 162-game major league season. Thus, a team that wins 90 games in a season would have 42 games of WAR value -- the 48 games that a team full of replacements would win, plus 42 "wins above replacement."

One legitimate criticism of WAR is that it misses by a little. One of WAR's virtues is that it doesn't miss by much. But it does miss by enough to be questionable. For example, as the Angels won 89 games last year, we would expect their WAR to total 41. Instead, by the Baseball-reference.com version of WAR, it totaled 46.3. If the Angels had won at the rate that WAR would predict, they would have finished with 94 wins, which would have put them into the playoffs. In the world according to WAR, the Oakland Athletics would have won 95 instead 94, the Texas Rangers would have won the same 93 and the Baltimore Orioles would have won 87 instead of 93. So, the Angels would have been in and the Orioles would have been out.

That's a pretty different world. So, WAR raises at least as many questions about itself as it answers about player value, and that should be kept in mind as we put it to work. It's a long way from being perfected.

It's also a lot of fun. So, back to the fun. Let's look at the Angels.

So far in 2013, Angels pitchers have produced 6.6 WAR, which works out to 12.2 WAR over 162 games. As it happens, Angels pitchers produced 4.8 WAR for all of last season. If WAR is to be believed, then Angels pitchers actually are better this year than last year, even though they rank 11th in American League ERA this year (4.23) and they ranked eighth last year (4.02).

At the end of last season, the Angels let go of Dan Haren (-0.4 WAR in 2012) and Ervin Santana (-1.3) and, essentially, replaced them with Jason Vargas and Joe Blanton. Vargas, with a 1.9 WAR so far this year, projects out to about 3.7 WAR over a full season, though we know we're not getting that because he'll miss about six weeks with a blood clot. Blanton has a -0.4 WAR, which works out to about -0.8 over the full season. Between Vargas and Blanton, the Angels would realize about 3.0 WAR over the full season, an improvement of 4.7 WAR over the combination of Haren and Santana in 2012.

C.J. Wilson finished with 0.7 WAR last year and now has 1.3 WAR in 2013, which would take him to about 2.5 over the full season. That's an upgrade of 1.8 WAR. Jered Weaver last year had 4.0 WAR and, so far this year, has 1.4 WAR, which would get him to about 2.8 over the full season. But Weaver is the reverse side of Vargas in that the former already has been injured and we might expect him to outpace the WAR he has established so far. The way Weaver is going lately, he might match last year's 4.0.

Last year, the Angels brought in Zach Greinke as a short timer and he gave them 1.4 WAR. He's pitching across town now and the Angels don't have an obvious replacement. However, Jerome Williams is good enough for WAR purposes. Last season, Williams totaled -0.2 WAR. This year, so far, he is 0.6, which rates out to about 1.2. That's an improvement of 1.4, which was precisely Greinke's contribution last season.

Ernesto Frieri last year totaled 1.4 WAR and he has 0.9 WAR so far this year, so he would come in around 1.8 for a small increase. But Scott Downs is showing a big increase, up from 0.4 WAR last year to 1.2 so far this season. He would pace out to about 2.4 WAR this year, a full two games better for a situational left-handed reliever. Even Garrett Richards works out better this season. Last year, he finished with -1.0 WAR and this year he projects to about -0.2 WAR.

Taking the next five Angels pitchers by appearances in 2013, we find Michael Kohn (0.7 so far), Kevin Jepsen (-0.0), Dane De La Rosa (0.5), Robert Coello (0.0) and Sean Burnett (0.6). They total 1.8, which would bring them in around 3.5. Compare them with the Angels next five pitchers from 2012 in appearances: Jason Isringhausen (0.1 in 2012), Jepsen (0.4), Jordan Walden (0.3), LaTroy Hawkins (0.0) and Hisanori Takahashi (-0.3). They total 0.5. So, the Angels, considering the solid back of their staff, are about 3.0 WAR better than last year.

Assuming that the discrepancies involving Weaver and Vargas will come out in the wash, the body of pitchers so far considered would come in right about 12 WAR better than last year. As to the remaining pitchers from each year, the guys who come and go, the Angels are about two WAR worse in 2013.

Position play, WAR tells us, is where the Angels really suffer this year in comparison with 2012. Defensively, in particular, WAR tells us exactly what the eye tells us. The Angels are ghastly this year. In 2012, they totaled 4.6 defensive WAR. In 2013, they are -4.7 WAR, which comes to about -9.0 over the full season. Perhaps WAR is telling us something about the relationship between pitching and defense, because the common measures tell us that the Angels pitching is worse this year, while WAR tells us that the pitching actually is better and it's the defense that's worse.

Offensively, WAR tells us that the Angels are a little worse than last year. Their offensive WAR last year was 36.7 and their offensive WAR so far this year is 17.1, which paces out to about 33. The less mysterious measurements tell us that that the Angels are more than a little worse offensively this year. The Angels are down from third in the league to seventh in runs, down from third to fifth in OPS and their OPS-plus is down from 116 to 111.

The big differences are found in individual position players, where we see enormous declines in WAR. That 12-game improvement in WAR among the pitchers is much more than offset by a projected decline of about 20 WAR among the position players.

Erick Aybar last year was 4.3 WAR and he's 0.2 WAR so far in 2013, so he paces out to a four-game WAR drop. Alberto Callaspo has dropped from 3.5 WAR to 0.0 WAR, so his decline is that large. By letting go of Torii Hunter, who had a 5.8 WAR last year, and replacing him with Josh Hamilton, who is 0.2 this year, the Angels figure to be another five WAR in the red. Albert Pujols did 5.0 WAR last year and he's 0.8 so far in 2013, a drop of about 3.5 over the full season. Mike Trout has followed last year's incredible 10.9 WAR with 3.9 so far this year. He paces out to about 7.7 WAR in 2013, another drop of three games. Were these players to maintain their WAR levels, they would end up being about 20 WAR worse in 2013 than 2012.

All of that is somewhat offset by improvements from other players. Howie Kendrick, who finished last year with 3.1 WAR, already has 2.8 in 2013 and would come in around 5.5, an increase of about 2.5 games. Chris Iannetta finished 1.4 in 2013 and already has 1.3 in 2013, so he figures to come in about 2.5, an increase of about one game. Peter Bourjos last year had 1.2 WAR and he has 1.3 already this year, so he would be about 1.2 better over this full season, except that he can't stay in the lineup. Mark Trumbo, 2.7 WAR last year, is 1.5 so far this year, so he would come out about the same. So, we see an improvement of about five WAR in 2013 among these players.

But when we go to the secondary position players, we see mostly decline. The next five Angels position players by appearance in 2012 were Kendrys Morales (2.2), Maicer Izturis (0.3), Vernon Wells (0.6), Bobby Wilson (0.9) and John Hester (-0.1). They total up to 3.9 WAR in 2012. The next five of those players for 2013 are J.B. Shuck (0.3), Brendan Harris (-0.6), Hank Conger (1.0), Luis Jimenez (-0.0) and Andrew Romine (-0.3). They add up to 0.4, which paces out to about 0.8, another drop of three games from the comparable players of 2012.

Putting it all together, WAR tells us that the Angels, over 162 games, would be going on four games worse offensively (down from 36.7 WAR in 2012 to about 33 this year), about seven or eight games better in their pitching (up from 4.8 to 12.2) and about 14 games worse defensively (down from 4.6 to about -9.0). That accounts, give or take, for the 10-game difference to the bad this year for the Angels.

Outside of WAR's suggestion here that pitching really isn't the Angels' problem, which is a little surprising, this quick and dirty study supports much of what we can plainly see by quantifing our qualitative intuitions. We could already tell that Hamilton instead of Hunter has turned out to be a bad exchange. WAR gives us an inkling of how bad. We could already see that Pujols, Callaspo and Aybar aren't as good as they were last year. WAR gives us some purchase on the extent of those declines.

In some respects, though, we're finding WAR quite hard to believe. WAR tells us that Trout is -1.3 defensively in 2013. Really? This season, the Angels are 10th in American League ERA by starters at 4.43, compared with fifth last year at 4.04. But WAR would have us believe that they get better starts this season. According to WAR, the Angels are a couple of wins better behind the plate this year. That isn't obvious.

WAR certainly is a salty concoction. It makes our discussions, like our food, tastier and more interesting, in the right amounts. In excess, it causes thirst, bloating, high blood pressure and weakening of the bones (osteoporosis), which might also characterize a good many baseball arguments that take WAR as gospel. Perhaps, WAR should be taken with a grain of salt. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it. But it’s not a good main course.

Six straight wins: Angels 5, Kansas City 2

The Angels have won seven of their last 10 games, tacking up an OPS of .922 in that time. Friday, in a 5-2 win in Kansas City, the Angels claimed their sixth straight win with 11 hits. The Royals, in their last 10 games, have an OPS of .661 and lost eight of the 10.

Mike Trout has been a demon in the batter's box and on the base paths lately for the Angels (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Generic 2.0 license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles


The game: May 24, Angels at Kansas City, American League. The Angels entered 20-27, tied for third place AL West, 10 games behind Texas. Kansas City entered 21-23, third place AL Central, five games behind Cleveland.

The pitchers: Angels, Jason Vargas, left hander (3-3 3.55). Kansas City, Luis Mendoza, right hander (1-2, 5.50).

The result: Angels 5, Kansas City 2 (Baseball-reference.com box score).

Summary: For the Angels right now, the hitting is good, the pitching is good and the fielding, at times, is real good. They're rocking, and Kansas City is reeling.

The pitching: Like just about anyone else facing the Royals these days, Angels left hander Jason Vargas had them eating out of his hand. Vargas was almost all fastball and changeup, mixing in, maybe, a curve or slider by the innings. He tended to the simpler plan lower in the Kansas City lineup, and tended to be most tricky against designated hitter Billy Butler, who really got the Angels' attention with that five-for-five game on May 13. Vargas gave up two runs in 7 1/3 innings, allowing five hits and walking four ... In seven of his last eight starts, Vargas has pitched seven or more innings and allowed three or fewer runs ... Garrett Richards, relieving Vargas, threw real well, allowing only one hit in 1 2/3 innings. Fangraphs.com says Richards has the fastest average fastball in the game at 95 MPH. In this outing, he topped out at 97 ... Richards picked up his first save of the year ... Richards took the save situation instead of Ernesto Frieri, who, despite two saves and a hold in his last three appearances, gave up at least a run in each appearance for totals of four earned runs in 3 1/3 innings ...

Kansas City manager Ned Yost told reporters he was plenty happy with the work of his starter, Luis Mendoza, who allowed only one run in five innings. However, Yost said, Mendoza was down to an effective two-seam fastball by the time he finished the fifth inning, so he went to the bullpen and Luke Hochevar, who has been effective there. However, Hochevar had an unfortunate night and took his first blown save of the year ...

The hitting: The Angels totaled 11 hits in this one, with at least a hit for everyone, except for Howie Kendrick, who still drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. Well, somebody has to make the outs, and Kendrick is batting .293 ... On May 13, the Royals visited Anaheim, designated hitter Billy Butler went five-for-five with five RBI, and the visitors claimed an 11-4 win. Since that night, the Angels are hitting, and the Royals aren't. In their ten games since then, the Angels are batting .303 with 16 homers and a slash line of .384/.538/.922. In so doing, they have raised their batting for the season 10 points to .262, their on-base percentage 15 points to .325, their slugging percentage 27 points to .427 and their OPS 42 points to .752. They also walked 46 times in those games, which is 4.6 times per game and well up from their average of 2.8 walks before then ... Since that same May 13 game, the Royals are batting .252 in 10 games with three homers and a slash line of .318/.343/.661. They have brought down their team batting average three points to .264, their on-base percentage is the same at .317, their slugging percentage is down 11 points to .384 and their OPS is down 11 points to .701 ...

The base running: Running all over the place in this game. Mike Trout matched his forcefulness at the plate with daring on the bases. He came home from third on a wild pitch in the third inning, ran like mad from first to third on a short single to center in the fifth, and, in the seventh, he led off and stole second base (thanks to a gift call by second base umpire Marty Foster) ... Right after Chris Iannetta homered against Kansas City's Luke Hochevar in the sixth inning, J.B. Shuck ran hard on his triple to right field. The Angels apparently tried to get Shuck home with a squeeze play, but Erick Aybar apparently missed out on that appearance and didn't get the bunt down, so Shuck was dead between third and home ... Shuck was thrown out trying to steal in the eighth inning after leading off with a walk ... Lorenzo Cain set up a scoring fifth inning for the Royals just by running hard. He led off with a ground ball to Angels shortstop Erick Aybar, who fielded the ball in short left field and didn't get the throw to first in time. Cain, then stole second base without a throw on a 1-0 pitch and scored on a soft single by Chris Getz past a diving Aybar ...

The fielding: As the just noted fifth-inning escapades of Lorenzo Cain illustrate, it was an inning of near misses in the field for Angels shortstop Erick Aybar ... In Thursday night's series opener, a 5-4 win for the Angels, the Angels made a number of beautiful defensive plays. Third baseman Alberto Callaspo turned a double down the line into a ground out with a sharp play going his right, Howie Kendrick played outstanding second base on three different pivots to make them all into double plays, and J.B. Shuck made a nice running catch to his right in left field ... The Angels weren't as sharp defensively in the Friday game. In addition to his misfortunes in the fifth inning, Aybar made a high throw to Kendrick trying to feed a double play, and Kendrick didn't catch it. Error on Kendrick ... Kansas City, on the other hand, made two notable defensive plays Friday, including a leaping throw going toward the hole by shortstop Alcides Escobar for one ground out and a spinning throw by second baseman Chris Getz going to his left and then throwing across his body for another ...

Strategic moves: It's not part of any manager's strategy to deal with bad calls by the umpires. In the seventh inning Friday, Mike Trout led off for the Angels with a walk, then stole second base. But the throw by Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez and the tag by second baseman Chris Getz were clearly in time. Second base umpire Marty Foster flat missed the call. There should have been one out and no one on in a 2-2 game. Instead, there was a runner on second and no one out. It changes the whole approach pitching down the order. Suddenly, the batter, Albert Pujols, is a threat to drive in the tying run. So, Kansas City reliever Aaron Crow missed with his last two fastballs to walk Pujols on five pitches. No outs. Big inning brewing. If it's a 3-1 count to Pujols with one out and no one on, there's a different plan on that next pitch. But Pujols is hot, so Crow threw a high fastball well out of the zone, hoping Pujols would chase and knowing that a walk isn't the worst outcome. Again, though, Pujols is hot, so he laid off and the Angels had two on with no one out. The Angels followed all that with a single by Mark Trumbo, a sacrifice fly by Howie Kendrick and a double by Alberto Callaspo ... Nice move by Angels manager Mike Scioscia, bringing in Garrett Richards in a save situation. The regular closer, Ernesto Frieri, has struggled of late and Scioscia is demonstrating that he will not hold his team hostage over a struggling reliever. So many managers will keep going to the closer and say, "He's the guy we need to have in there at the end," because they don't want to take responsibility for the ninth inning. Scioscia takes that responsibility ...

What now: With this one game, the Angels moved up in the standings and the Royals moved down. The Angels now are 21-27, third place in the AL West, moving ahead of Seattle, which lost to Texas. The Angels still are 10 games behind the Rangers. Kansas City fell to 21-24, falling behind Chicago into fourth in the AL West. The series in Kansas City continues Saturday (11:10 a.m. PDT). The Angels are going with Billy Buckner, who has yet to appear in the big leagues this year. He will become the 21st pitcher the Angels have used this season. The club record is 29, set in 1996. Pitching for Kansas City is right hander Jeremy Guthrie (5-2, 3.49).

Vargas vexes Sox: Angels 6, Chicago 2

Are the Angels changing before our eyes? Or is the Chicago pitching that wild? The Angels walked six times, twice with the bases loaded, in their 6-2 win Sunday against the White Sox. After walking 16 times in the last two games, the Angels now have more walks than the American League average, which is highly unusual under the field management of Mike Scioscia.

Howie Kendrick had two hits Sunday, the most for the Angels on a day when they walked twice with the bases loaded (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Share Alike-Attribution Generic 2.0 license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The game: May 19, Chicago at Angels, American League. Chicago entered the game 19-22, tied for fourth (and last) place AL Central, five games behind Detroit and Cleveland. The Angels entered 16-27, fifth place AL West, 12 games behind Texas.

The pitchers: Chicago, Jake Peavy, right hander (5-1, 2.96). Angels, Jason Vargas, left hander (2-3, 4.03).

The result: Angels 6, Chicago 2 (Baseball-reference.com box score).

Summary: The Angels got a very well-pitched game and Chicago did not. On the second of those, much credit should go to the Angels, who ran very aggressively and walked twice with the bases loaded to set up their victory.

The pitching: If everything else is equal, one doesn't expect Angels starter Jason Vargas to outduel White Sox starter Jake Peavy. But everything else wasn't equal Sunday afternoon, because Peavy was facing the Angels and Vargas was facing the White Sox ... That, and Vargas pitched beautifully in his seven shutout innings. He threw 114 pitches, and he changed speeds off the previous pitch on 94 of them. When he threw the same speed, he changed location. Vargas also pitched outside of the strike zone to good effect ... The White Sox waited for his fastball all day, and that's mostly what he threw, but he kept them so off balance that they couldn't get good swings at him ... If this game seemed different for the performance from Vargas, it was. Angels starters were 9-20 with a 5.08 ERA entering the game ... Reliever Ernesto Frieri walked the bases loaded in the ninth and gave up one run on a sacrifice fly, but he entered with a 4-1 lead and a man on in the eighth, so he still picked up his ninth save ... Peavy was going for his fourth straight win, but he walked five hitters in six innings, three of them in the fourth inning, when the Angels scored two runs. Of the five batters Peavy walked, two of them scored, and there were two instances when he walked in runs with the bases loaded ...

The hitting: After scoring nine runs Saturday, the White Sox reverted to form and hardly touched Angels starter Jason Vargas, who limited them to four hits in seven shutout innings ... The White Sox were zero-for-seven batting with runners in scoring position ... The Angels drew six walks after walking 10 times Saturday ... Get this! With those 16 walks in their last two games, the Angels have 140 for the season, which is actually above the American League average of 137 walks. The Angels, who have finished in the bottom half of the American League in walks in every season under the field management of Mike Scioscia, except his first, now are tied with Minnesota for seventh in American League walks. Last year, when the AL had 14 teams instead of 15, the Angels ranked 12th with 449 walks ... Angels right fielder Josh Hamilton, who entered the game seven-for-15 with two homers lifetime against Chicago starter Jake Peavy, was one-for-three with a single against him Sunday ... The Angels won this game even though Mike Trout didn't score, which is rare. The Angels now are 4-18 when Trout doesn't score a run, and 13-9 when he does ...

The base running: The Angels had Chris Iannetta on third and J.B. Shuck on first with no outs in the third. Erick Aybar hit a ball into the right-field corner. After White Sox right fielder Alex Rios slid to keep the ball from the fence, he threw to second baseman Jeff Keppinger, who was lined up for a throw to third. Shuck ran off first so fast that he was around third and halfway home when Keppinger let Rios' throw through and it reached White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez. With the play happening behind him as he reached second base, Aybar risked making the first out of the inning at third as he bolted to the next corner. He lost. Aybar was about halfway between second and third when Ramirez got the ball to third baseman Conor Gillespie, and he was out in an easy rundown ...

The fielding: Angels shortstop Erick Aybar dropped a back-handed short hop against Chicago's Jeff Keppinger in the third, enabling the batter to reach with a single ... White Sox center fielder Alejandro De Aza mishandled J.B. Shuck's single in the third, enabling Angels catcher Chris Iannetta to move from first to third ... Shuck made a nice running and sliding attempt to rob Conor Gillespie in the seventh inning, but the ball dropped just past the top of Shuck's glove for a leadoff double. One out later, Angels center fielder Mike Trout made a beautiful diving catch to his left, taking extra bases and an RBI from Jeff Keppinger. It's a tribute to Trout's reputation as a fly catcher that Gillespie wasn't already almost at third base. Instead, Gillespie waited, tagged and took third while Trout got up and threw. The Angels got out of it when the next batter, Tyler Flowers, grounded out ...

Strategic moves: Playing in the American League means you never have to hit for your pitcher. Managing the Angels means you have only one relief pitcher who is truly reliable. Put them together, and it's easy to see Angels manager Mike Scioscia's general game strategy with regard to his pitchers -- stretch that starter out as far as possible, then get the ball to Ernesto Frieri as soon as feasible. Sunday, Scioscia brought Frieri in for his second four-out save in as many days. After Jason Vargas gave him seven shutout innings, Scioscia gave the ball to Dane De La Rosa  and Scott Downs for one out each before giving the ball to Frieri with two out and a man on second in the eighth inning of a game the Angels led, 4-1. Frieri didn't have his best day, walking three hitters and giving up a run in the ninth, but he picked up his ninth save.

What now: The Angels improved to 17-27, still fourth place in the AL West, still 12 games behind Texas. The White Sox fell to 19-23, remaining tied with Minnesota for fourth place in the AL Central, six games behind Cleveland. With Sunday's win, the Angels have brought themselves even with the White Sox all-time. The series, which reached its 52nd birthday on Saturday, is tied, 351-351 ... The Angels are taking Monday off before Seattle drops into Anaheim for a two-game series that starts Tuesday. The Angels will pitch right hander Jerome Williams (2-1, 3.05) for the 7:05 p.m. PDT start. The Mariners will counter with recent Dodgers right hander Aaron Harang (1-4, 7.30), who probably wouldn't be helping the Dodgers even if they'd kept him ... The White Sox begin a three-game series at home against Boston Monday night. Right hander Dylan Axelrod (1-3, 4.27) is pitching for the White Sox against Boston left hander Jon Lester (6-0, 2.72).

Walking to a win: Angels 12, Chicago 9

Such an unlikely way for the Angels to win a game. They walked 10 times, Alberto Callaspo drove in five runs and they came back from a 4-0 deficit to defeat the Chicago White Sox, 12-9, Saturday at Angel Stadium. The Angels won for the first time in Joe Blanton's nine starts for them, and he wasn't very good.

Angels third baseman Alberto Callaspo led the way Saturday with five RBI (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Generic 2.0 license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The game: May 18, Chicago at Angels, American League. Chicago entered 19-21, tied for fourth AL Central, four games behind Detroit and Cleveland. The Angels entered 15-27, fourth place AL West, 12 games behind Texas.

The pitchers: Chicago, Hector Santiago, left hander (1-2, 2.33). Angels, Joe Blanton, right hander (0-7, 6.46).

The result: Angels 12, Chicago 9 (Baseball-reference.com box score).


Summary: We always say that anytime you watch a baseball game, you might see something you've never seen before. The Angels walked 10 times Saturday. Maybe we've seen that before, but possibly not, as the Angels are in the bottom half of the American League in walks every year since Mike Scioscia became their manager. Anyway, the Angels needed all of those walks to overcome a 17-hit onslaught by Chicago, which remains the worst offensive team in the AL.

The pitching: When the closer gives up a three-run homer and still gets a save, you know this particular game is not about pitching. Angels closer Ernesto Frieri did exactly that, coming into a 10-6 Angels lead with two out in the eighth and two men on, meaning the tying run was on-deck. On the second pitch he threw, Frieri gave up a base-clearing bomb to Hector Gimenez, the reserve catcher who towered above all other hitters on a day when everyone was Stan Musial. However, Frieri finished off the eighth, then struck out all three hitters he faced in the ninth for his eighth save of the year ... Angels starter Joe Blanton courted disaster for three innings and finally won her heart in the fourth. Blanton gave up two hits in each of the first three innings and left them all on base. In the fourth, he walked a hitter, gave up a hit, then, with two out, hit Chicago's Alexei Ramirez with a pitch. This time, the dam broke. Alex Rios hit a hard ground ball off the glove of third baseman Alberto Callaspo, who leaped into the air going to his left. Two runs scored on the double. On the very next pitch, Adam Dunn singled to right, driving in two more ...

The life savers in this game for the Angels were middle relievers Robert Coello and Dane De La Rosa, who combined for 2 2/3 shutout innings to get the club through a fifth-inning jam and carry them through the seventh with a 5-4 lead. Coello entered for Blanton with one out and the bases loaded in the fifth, then struck out Ramirez and the hot-hitting Rios, both swinging at hard, sinking fastballs. The right hander now has pitched seven innings over five appearances without giving up a run ... The Angels brought in Garrett Richards, recently converted to the bullpen, for the second day in a row to pitch the eighth inning. It didn't work out. Richards gave up four runs (though two came on the homer against Frieri) in 2/3 of an inning. His ERA ballooned from 4.78 to 5.63, almost a full run. Being fair to Richards, two of the four hits he allowed were infield hits ...

The White Sox got no pitching from anybody. Sox hurlers faced 45 hitters and turned only 22 of them into outs. The other two outs for the Angels came when Albert Pujols hit into a double play and Mike Trout was caught stealing.

The hitting: When Alex Rios bounced his double high off the leaping glove of Angels third baseman Alberto Callaspo to trigger a four-run inning in the fourth, probably no one figured Callaspo would be the man to lead the Halos out of their resulting 4-0 hole. But Callaspo put the ball into the air to hit two sacrifice flies and a three-run homer, leading the club with five RBI ... The switch-hitting Callaspo hit the ball hard from each side of the plate. Batting right-handed, he took Chicago left fielder Dayan Viciedo all the way to the wall in the second inning, hit a line-drive single to left in the fourth, then greeted Sox reliever Donnie Veal, a lefty, with a three-run homer to left in the seventh. Batting left-handed, Callaspo hit a sacrifice fly to the front of the track in right field, driving in Mark Trumbo to give the Angels a 5-4 lead in the fifth. He didn't hit the ball as hard from the left side in the eighth, but he got the job done with a sacrifice fly to left field ... Of the ten different players who took at-bats for the Angels Saturday, all of them walked at least once, except for Callaspo, Albert Pujols and Howie Kendrick. But Callaspo drove in five runs, while Pujols and Kendrick each had two hits ...

If the Angels are to make anything of this season and it turns out to have started with this game, then we might look back on Trumbo's fourth-inning homer as the turning point. The Angels offered this to reporters: After Chicago scored four in their half of the inning for a 4-0 lead, they were telling each other to just get one back and keep playing. Then, Trumbo led off with his homer to left. You wouldn't expect a guy who homered to bring his 15-27 team within 4-1 in the fourth inning to be especially juiced, but Trumbo's excitement coming around the bases was hard to miss, especially his hard hand slap with third base coach Dino Ebel as he headed for home ... Then again, we shouldn't be too surprised about Trumbo. This guy is a really good player in many ways. He plays a nice first base, he's adequate in the corner outfields and he can handle designated hitter, so he gives his manager a lot of flexibility, in addition to extra base pop ... With two RBI Saturday, Trumbo has driven in 17 runs in his last 19 games. He's only eight-for-42 in his most recent ups, but he makes the hits count. Of his last 18 hits, 13 are for extra bases (six doubles and seven homers) and, as we've said, he drives in runs ...

Another interesting player for the Angels right now is this pop-gun corner outfielder, left-handed hitting J.B. Shuck. When club owner Arte Moreno isn't looking because he's so fixated on adding glitter to the roster, Shuck is the kind of guy who an astute baseball person sneaks onto the team. Houston gave up on Schuck during the winter and cut him loose, apparently because he has absolutely no power -- just seven homers in 2,463 professional plate appearances, no homers anywhere since 2010 and no homers at all above the Class AA level. He's a singles hitter all the way ... But he has a career minor league batting average of .301 in 2,299 plate appearances, never batted lower than .292 in any of his five minor league seasons, and never had a minor league on-base percentage lower than .366. Two interesting figures for Shuck: his career minor league on-base percentage is .382, and his career minor league slugging percentage is .381. He has more walks than strikeouts every year except one. In his last two seasons of Class AAA ball, he played 223 games, walked 95 times and struck out 50 times ... And he runs well, though probably not well enough right now to be an effective base stealer. In those two years at Oklahoma City (Pacific Coast League), Shuck was 32-for-51 in stolen base attempts, 62.7 percent. He needs to be around 75 percent to make the successful steals worth the outs they cost. But he's only 25 and, perhaps, a little instruction could make him a threat to steal ... And he has handled himself well in left field and right field for the Angels ... Anyway, Shuck had another nice game Saturday, two-for-four with three RBI, including a two-run double. He's batting .306 ... Could go on and on here. Lots to like about this player.

The White Sox, of course, had their hitters on this day ... Shortstop Alexei Ramirez and designated hitter Paul Konerko each had three hits ... The day turned two other White Sox into .300 hitters. Alex Rios kept a 13-game hitting streak alive with a two-for-four day, pushing his batting average up to .302. And Dayan Viciedo was two-for-three, pushing his average up to .303 ... However, Adam Dunn kept a five-game hitting streak alive, and it hasn't even made him a .200 hitter. Dunn is eight-for-22 (.363) on his streak, bringing his season average up to a lusty .173 ... The big bopper for the White Sox was backup catcher Hector Gimenez, a switch hitter who was four-for-five with a three-run homer.

The base running: One never knows what base running like this actually costs a club, but, for example, Chicago's Alexei Ramirez only went from first to second on a single to right field by the next hitter, Alex Rios, with one out in the first inning. The Angels right fielder, Mark Trumbo, played deep against Rios and never had a chance to catch the ball. There was absolutely no danger of Ramirez being thrown out at third and, with one out, he has to get there. As it turned out, the next two hitters, Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko, both struck out swinging against Angels starter Joe Blanton to end the inning. But if Ramirez were on third, particularly during Dunn's at-bat, that would have dictated a change of approach for the hitter and the pitcher, perhaps with a different result. The White Sox lamented after the game that they didn't make enough of their early opportunities, but here was a case where they didn't even make an early opportunity ... Ramirez did go from first to third without a throw on Konerko's two-out single to center in the third ...

Albert Pujols can't be feeling good with that plantar fasciitis in his left foot, but he doesn't stop running. He hustled out a double to short right in the fifth, enabling himself to easily score the tying run for the Angels on Mark Trumbo's double to the wall in right center ... Mike Trout always likes to get out and run for the Angels, and one can see why. In the first, Trout singled, only to be erased on Pujols' double-play grounder. In the third, Trout walked, only for Pujols to hit into a force play to end the inning. In the seventh, Trout walked and, this time, he tried to steal second with Pujols batting. But he was thrown out. Then, Pujols struck out looking. Who knew that it would be the start of a five-run inning for the Angels? In the eighth, Trout led off with a walk, moved from first to third on Pujols' single to right, then scored on a double by Howie Kendrick.

The fielding: For all his offensive prowess Saturday, Alberto Callaspo isn't what he used to be at third base for the Angels, and it's no wonder he's splitting the position with rookie Luis Jimenez. Callaspo struggles going to his left and coming in on balls. Saturday, three plays -- only one of them easy, granted -- got the better of him. In the second, he couldn't get enough zip on his throw to turn Dayan Viciedo's chopper into an out. In the third, he misplayed an easy roller by Alexi Ramirez down the third base line into a hit. And in the fourth, there was that high bouncer by Alex Rios that skipped off Callaspo's glove for a two-run double ... Angels right fielder Mark Trumbo mishandled Adam Dunn's single in the fourth inning, but with two out and runners on second and third, those two runs were going to score, anyway ... Trumbo took over first base for Brendan Harris in the seventh and made a short diving stop to his right against Tyler Greene to end that inning ...

The White Sox removed Dunn from first base in the fifth inning because of a bad back. His replacement, Jeff Keppinger, made nice diving stop to his right in the sixth, turning Chris Iannetta's sure leadoff single into a ground out ... While going four-for-five at the plate, White Sox catcher Hector Gimenez also let by two passed balls and couldn't block a wild pitch. Fortunately for him, none of those plays ultimately resulted in any Angels scoring.

Strategic moves: How does strategy play into a game like this? Either the pitchers get guys out, or they don't. By the numbers, the Angels are an average offensive team in the American League, and they scored 12 runs in eight innings of hitting. The White Sox have the worst offensive numbers in the league, and they scored nine runs ... To start the seventh, leading, 5-4, Angels manager Mike Scioscia made a couple of defensive substitutions, moving Mark Trumbo from right field to first base, removing Brendan Harris from first base, and taking Josh Hamilton off the bench and putting him in right field. Trumbo immediately rewarded Scioscia with a nice play at first base. Trumbo walked in the bottom of the seventh and scored on Alberto Callaspo's three-run homer, then Hamilton followed Callaspo's homer with a one-out single and later scored on J.B. Shuck's double. In the eighth, after the Angels already expanded their lead to 12-9, Hamilton drew an intentional walk ... Did these moves by Scioscia help? They certainly didn't hurt.

What now: The Angels improved to 16-27, still fourth place in the AL West, still 12 games behind Texas. They snapped a three-game losing streak and avoided their worst 43-game start since 1976, when they were 15-28. The Angels are 7-7 against the AL Central and 9-20 against all other clubs ... The White Sox now are 19-22, still tied with Minnesota for fourth (and last) place in the AL Central, but now five games behind Detroit and Cleveland ... The Angels will try for a split in this four-game series Sunday (12:35 p.m. PDT) at Angel Stadium. Left hander Jason Vargas (2-3, 4.03) will throw for the Angels. Vargas is 2-0 with a 2.91 ERA in May. The White Sox will answer with right hander Jake Peavy (5-1, 2.96), who is going for a fourth straight win for the first time since the second half of the 2009 season ... Saturday was the anniversary of the very first game the Angels and White Sox every played against each other. On May 18, 1961, before 3,740 at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, the White Sox prevailed, 6-4.

Williams washes White Sox: Angels 3, Chicago 2

Angels right hander Jerome Williams made his second start count Saturday in a 3-2 win at Chicago. Williams received help from Mike Trout's two-run homer and a dismal display of defense for the White Sox, who don't hit very well, either.

Jerome Williams, left, and Mike Trout, right, on a different night (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Share Alike 2.0 Generic License).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The game: May 11, Los Angeles Angels at Chicago White Sox, American League. Los Angeles entered 13-22, fourth place AL West, nine games behind Texas, Chicago entered 14-19, fifth place AL Central, six games behind Detroit.

The pitchers: Los Angeles, Jerome Williams, right hander (1-1, 3.16). Jose Quintana, left hander (2-0,3.86).

The result: Los Angeles 3, Chicago 2.

Summary: The Angels won their third game in a row against a last-place team with little to say for it except Mike Trout's two-run homer, only their second quality start in eight games and some characteristic assistance from the cellar-dwelling Southsiders.

The pitching: Jerome Williams throws five pitches, but the one he really wanted to ride was the sinker, which did him few favors. After the second inning, he mixed in everything else and had the White Sox eating out of his hand. In the first two innings, Williams threw 39 pitches, 25 of which were sinkers on MLB.com's play-by-play. The results of the sinkers: 11 balls, two called strikes, one swinging strike, five foul balls and six put in play (four for singles). Even when Williams induced ground balls with the sinker, which is the point of throwing it, the White Sox hit four straight ground ball singles off that pitch in the second inning, when they scored two runs.

After the second inning, Williams threw 53 pitches, 20 of which were sinkers. The results of the sinkers: five balls (including a 3-2 sinker that missed for a walk), two called strikes, three swinging strikes, three foul balls and seven put in play (two for singles). After the second inning, he allowed a total of three base runners, notched two one-two-three innings and retired the first two hitters in the seventh before Angels manager Mike Scioscia turned it over to his bullpen.

Quintana came out with five four-seam fastballs in his first seven pitches, the last of which Trout hit for a two-run homer. Then, he started Albert Pujols with five straight four-seamers and had a 3-2 count to show for it. He got through the inning by retiring Pujols, Mark Trumbo and Howie Kendrick with two-strike curve balls. The Angels didn't hit the ball as hard with their bats as the White Sox hit it with their gloves for the rest of the day.

The hitting: After the third inning, there was little hitting to speak of -- just five hits total. The White Sox needed to bunch five singles to score twice in the second inning ... It seems that Mark Trumbo almost never sees a fastball lately, but he singled in the ninth off a slider, the third day in a row he notched a base hit on a breaking ball ... The leadoff hitter for the White Sox in every game he has played is Alejandro De Aza. The No. 3 hitter for the White Sox in every game he's played is Alex Rios. The No. 2 hitter has mostly been Jeff Keppinger. And you wonder why the White Sox can't score. The White Sox have two cleanup hitters -- Paul Konerko and Adam Dunn. They have three No. 6 hitters -- De Aza, Rios and Dayan Viciedo. And they can't hide the rest of their hitters anywhere.

The base running: Just by the eyeballs and lacking data, one might wager that Albert Pujols has run into more outs and made more base running errors in his first 200 games with the Angels than he made in his entire 11 years with the St. Louis Cardinals. He's as aggressive as ever, but he doesn't have the same presence of mind. In the fifth inning, Pujols reached when White Sox first baseman Adam Dunn dropped his pop-up, but he turned too wide and Dunn threw him out going back. In the third inning, Pujols scored the lead run from third base on a passed ball, but he barely made it ... It wasn't Mike Trout's best day on the bases, either. After singling in the third inning, Trout got himself caught off first base by Jose Quintana. Trout tried going the other way, to second base, and was thrown out there by Dunn.

The fielding: The Angels made a nice defensive play, and the White Sox made several bad ones. In the second inning, Angels right fielder Jose Hamilton threw out Jeff Keppinger at the plate. Keppinger was trying to score the lead run from second on a single by Alejandro De Aza ... The White Sox scored twice in the inning with three ground balls to the left side. With Alberto Callaspo at third base and Brendan Harris at shortstop, they're not getting the best coverage. A single by Jeff Keppinger that inning, in particular, was playable if Callaspo were rangier to his left or Harris were quicker to his right. But Harris wasn't especially quick going to his left, either, when Tyler Greene rolled one with the bases loaded to drive in the first Chicago run. The ball never left the infield grass, so it was a tough play, but it was one of those plays where one could see the Angels missing Erick Aybar.

The White Sox have some problems up the middle defensively. Saturday, White Sox second baseman Tyler Greene made a throwing error on a routine two-out grounder by Josh Hamilton, allowing Albert Pujols to take third. With Howie Kendrick batting next, White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers let a pitch go by him for a passed ball that allowed Pujols to score. That's how the Angels scored their winning run. The problems didn't end there. In the first inning, center fielder Alejandro De Aza mishandled Hamilton's gapper and Hamilton ended up with a triple. Friday night, De Aza mishandled a double by Pujols, allowing Trout to score from first base on the error. When the next hitter, Trumbo, dropped a breaking ball in front of De Aza, Pujols scored from second without even drawing a throw.

Strategic moves: The core strategy of baseball is very simple. Get the lead and keep it. According to Retrosheet data from more than 122,000 major league games, the winning team never trails in 56.3 percent of all baseball games. You've got that battle half won with a good bullpen. The Angels bullpen tacked up 3 1/3 shutout innings Saturday to put this one away. Los Angeles relievers now have pitched 12 2/3 scoreless innings in the last five games. Closer Ernesto Frieri has really found it in May -- five appearances, 6 1/3 innings, one hit, no runs, 11 strikeouts and four saves in four opportunities. He walked three in the first of those outings, but has only walked one since then.

What now: The Angels are 14-22, still fourth place in the AL West, nine games behind Texas. The White Sox are 14-20, fifth place in the AL Central, six games behind Detroit. Each club will send its best guy out there for the Sunday night ESPN game. For the Angels, that's left hander C.J. Wilson (3-1, 3.86), who allowed seven runs, though only two earned, in a 7-6 loss in Houston Tuesday. The White Sox have lefty Chris Sale (3-2, 3.42). Sale has a 2.33 ERA over 28 1/3 innings in his last four starts, during which he never allowed more than two earned runs. But he only has two wins to show for it.

Angels, Frieri, win battle of the bullpen closers

New Angels closer Ernesto Frieri and Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen met twice this week in the Freeway Series at Dodger Stadium. Frieri won the matching both times, and it made the difference as the Angels won two of three, taking the series in the city yard for the fourth year in a row.


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

If there's anything to be learned from the Freeway Series just concluded at Dodger Stadium, we could surmise that the Angels are better situated for a closer.

The rubber game Wednesday came down to a one-inning showdown between the Dodgers' Kenley Jansen, who lost it to a long fly, and the Angels’ Ernesto Frieri, who came within less than an inch of giving it back.

But the Angels don't give a lot back to the Dodgers, against whom they are 11-4 since 2009. A 2-1 win for the Angels Wednesday gave them four straight series wins at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers have only won four series anywhere against the Angels since 2002. Angels lead the series all-time, 52-37.

Wednesday night was the second such encounter between Jansen and Frieri in this series. Monday night, Frieri prevailed with a ninth-inning save after the Angels scratched out a run against Jansen to take a 3-2 lead. Wednesday, the blow was more sudden and surprising -- Erick Aybar's first home run of the year, a line blast to right field in the ninth inning, giving the Angels their decisive 2-1 lead. Jansen's pitch, a 90 MPH fastball, went straight through the middle of the plate with no apparent signs of life.

Pitching on a day of rest after three days of work, Frieri barely preserved the lead. He walked A.J Ellis to start the inning, then James Loney singled Ellis to third with no one out. Up came Juan Uribe, just off the disabled list and entering the game with a .333 average against right handers.

Frieri missed with his first two fastballs and fell into a 2-0 hole. The Dodgers had him right where they wanted him. Next, Frieri threw a 94 MPH fastball and Uribe just missed it, fouling it straight back. He hits that ball a couple centimeters higher and it's traveling. Next pitch, same thing -- 94, through the middle, fouled straight back.

That was the Dodgers' chance to win the game, and it was gone. We mean not to put everything on one player or at bat, but to point out that the Dodgers didn't get a good rip at Frieri after that.

Uribe hit the next pitch, another fastball, hard on the ground right at Aybar. Running on contact, Ellis was dead at the plate, but he prolonged the rundown enough to get Loney to third and Uribe to second. The Dodgers traded a base for an out, which isn't necessarily the best deal in the game because the runner on first with no outs scores more frequently than the runner on second with one out. But putting the winning run on second seemed worth the trade with one out for the Dodgers, because now they would get two cracks at it.

But Tony Gwynn struck out looking, and Bobby Abreu hit a ground ball right back at Frieri, who made a nice play on it before ending the game with his throw to first.

Following Wednesday's game, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told reporters that the club was asking a lot of Jansen to work for his third straight night. Tuesday, Mattingly used Jansen to work a one-inning save with a 5-2 lead in the ninth.

The Tuesday game, of course, turned out to be a gimme for the Dodgers in the bullpens because Frieri had worked his third straight game, successfully, for a save Monday night. Scioscia was counting on lefty Scott Downs to be available for Tuesday, but Downs couldn't go because of pains in his side, so Scioscia left starting pitcher Jerome Williams in there to give up the game-tying and game-winning hits in the eighth inning.

In other words, close as this series was, the Dodgers could have swept, but the Angels, unlike the Dodgers, were actually very close to sweeping, perhaps, if Downs hadn't come up sore Tuesday.

One has to be impressed with the Angels going into Dodger Stadium and winning two of three. Much as we fret about the Dodgers being tattered and patched together, they still have the best record in baseball at 40-24. But they're 17-15 since Matt Kemp first went on the disabled list, not 23-11 like they were before he went on it.

Right now, the Angels are a little better. Especially at the very end of the game.