MVN - Most Valuable Network

Angels offense hits embarrassing new low in Freeway Series, plus Readers React!

You know if the Angels could score any amount of runs or muster any kind of offense this team could be quite dangerous in the postseason.

But with the way this Angels offense performed against the Dodgers this weekend I would be hard-pressed to find a Little League team the Halos could beat.

Harsh words, you say?!

This was the weekend that the Angels became the fifth team in major league history to lose a game where the other team did not get a hit!! The Angels somehow managed to lose a no-hitter!!

(And spare me your technicalities about how a no-hitter requires nine-innings - the Angels pitchers put together a no hitter on Saturday and lost. Bottom line. Somewhere Harvey Haddix’s spirit is smiling.)

And overall offensively for the entire series the Angels managed to score one run. One run!! And yet somehow managed to win one game and leave the Freeway Series with the same division lead over the A’s as the team had to start the weekend.

Fortunately, the Angels and their Murderer’s Little Girl’s Row get to face those same A’s Monday through Wednesday in Anaheim. Perhaps the Angels will continue to create new offensive lows against the A’s; perhaps one of the Angels pitchers - not Jon Garland - will throw a perfect game against the A’s and somehow, someway the Angels will find a way to lose that game!

Ugh. Normally, I don’t call for firings or dismissals but at some point doesn’t the Angels brass have to start looking at the job that hitting coach Mickey Hatcher is doing for the club.

Whatever he is saying to these guys is simply not working.

Does Mickey Hatcher deserve to be fired? I am not sure. But at some point soon the Angels have to figure out some way to generate runs out of this club because whatever they are doing right now ain’t working.

General manager Tony Reagins, manager Mike Scioscia and even Arte Moreno need to have a summit/meeting with Hatcher and figure out some way to generate more runs from this club.

And - because I wouldn’t be an opinionated blogger if I didn’t offer some solution - here is what I would do:

I would move Casey Kotchman into the No. 3 position in the batting order for a few games - just a few - to see what he can do.

I know that the No. 3 position in the batting order is ostensibly reserved for your best hitter which for the Angels is Vladimir Guerrero. And Guerrero has been scorching the ball lately.

But Kotchman has been the Angels’ best hitter all year and shows the best plate discipline of all of the Angels hitters other than maybe Chone Figgins.

Insert Kotchman into that No. 3 position for a few games, bump Vlad down to No. 4 and then have Garret Anderson and Torii Hunter alternate between No. 5 and 6 depending on the matchup.

You could even place Kotchman into the No. 2 spot in the lineup and that could spur some offensive momentum. This is just a modest proposal but it could generate wonders - or at least two or three runs for the Angels.

Anyway, the Angels have reached a little bit past the midway point of the season with a 49-33 record, 16 games above .500 and a 4.5 game lead over the A’s. However, it has been a division lead created on the backs of the best starting rotation in baseball and one that cannot continue to be leaned on.

The Angels need to figure out how to score runs and fast - the second half of the season awaits.

READERS REACT: I received an e-mail from longtime Big A Baseball reader Angelmike who asked that we print a complaint of his about the Angels broadcast team of Rex Hudler and Steve Physioc who called the Freeway Series games for the Angels this weekend. I am printing Angelmike’s e-mail below in italics and will follow it with one comment of mine:

Arte:How does it feel to be swept by your cross-town rivals? You know that other team who claims “Los Angeles”? Oh, you say, you were not swept, we scored one run and pulled one out, yea I know, we no-hit them the day before and lost, but that was a fluke too!

Sorry, you miss the point Arte. You lost the entire series a few minutes before the first pitch was thrown on Friday night. You see Vinny was broadcasting the Dodgers and you put on Rex and Steve Show. There are not enough letters, nor space on the Internet, to really explain how Rex and Steve are deficient. Lets leave it with mindless banter, incessant repetition, more technique critique than the any stomach can handle, and, of course, the often INACCURATE nature of their high pitched words…Rex does hold a ball when he is speaking…right?

Arte, you made your billion in advertising, branding products to sell to suckers and now you are selling the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to people who may just live closer to Chavez Ravine than to Anaheim Stadium. Go figure.

Ok…so you will tell me there is only one Vin Scully. NOBODY could compete. You might be right, because listening to Vin for the first ten minutes of Friday’s broadcast I learned things about Howie [Howard] Kendrick and Garret Anderson that I never heard before. How is it that Vin can do that to me as I have listened to Rex and Steve for years now? Do you think it might have something to do with professional preparation, some kind of reverence for the game and how it connects us to “the memories so thick we have to brush them away from our faces?”

Your rotating announcers are like the ducks that lie down and stand up in the Frontierland shooting gallery. Arte, thank you…you did allow me a quality choice. Radio. Rory and Terry are class acts that if on TV I might have considered, oh just for a few minutes, switching over now and then. But your inane replacement schedule is too much for me to handle, it’s like having John Lackey and Jered Weaver alternate at DH….come to think of it…

Now just to be very clear…the concept is not lost on you, is it Arte? I am not watching “your” broadcast so I am not experiencing the delight of your sponsors’ commercials! But then you add insult to injury, something you need to talk to your players about…constant injury…the Dodger broadcast was in HD. My Direct TV could not find the Angel broadcast in HD…on Channel 13…? Maybe it was just my TV but then again, even HD can’t help Rex and Steve …right?

One run in three games….oh well, when Oakland comes to town I will be in my seat…at least at ANAHEIM Stadium I can watch the game without the R and E distraction….but those millions at home in front of their TV….too bad…suckers!

Angelmike

I agree with most of the comments Angelmike makes but I wonder if maybe the Angels management decided that since people are more likely to tune into the Vin Scully broadcast that maybe it was better to put in the bad announcing team for TV and put the good announcing team (Rory Markus and Terry Smith) on the radio where Scully only does the simulcast for a few innings.

But yeah, Angelmike makes a good point - hearing Vin Scully call a baseball game and then hearing Rex Hudler and Steve Physioc call the same game is like comparing Raiders of the Lost Ark to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

With Vin Scully and Raiders, you know you are getting a classic, something you can watch and listen to over and over again.

With Rex and Steve and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you are getting something that seems like the original (announcers calling a baseball game, an Indiana Jones movie) but in no way shape or form resembles the original and is more like something your dog ate and then threw up.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.