Tag Archives: Los Angeles Angels

Six to nine–what a way to make a living

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Sebastian Rivero

Sebastian Rivero starting his Sunday mayhem against Dodgers starter Emmett Sheehan in the second inning . . .

Baseball’s first June weekend finished rather eventfully. Especially if you wore Dodger uniforms, in your own playpen, facing the patsies from down the freeway who came into Sunday’s game hoping to find some way to avoid being swept in your season series.

Who knew? All the Angels had to do was trust in the bottom of their batting order. Except for Zach Neto hitting a three-run homer late in the game, the top five in the lineup might as well have taken the day off, for all that they weren’t hitting.

Cue Dolly Parton: Working six to nine—what a way to make a living.

The box score for the Angels’s less-than-likely 13-5 demolition of the Big Bad Dodgers Sunday afternoon only hints at the bottom boys’s destruction: 13-for-15 with four walks, ten runs scored, and ten driven in. Shall we go into the details? Of course we shall. The stars of the show: Jo (Heads Up) Adell, Nick Madrigal, Jose Siri, and Sebastian Rivero.

Adell—4-for-5 including a second-inning single and run scored; a fourth-inning leadoff single and run scored; a base hit setting up first and third and another run scored in the fifth; and, a one-out yank into the left center field seats with one on in the seventh to start putting the game out of the Dodgers’s reach.

Madrigal—1-for-3 with three walks: a walk in the second after an overturned pitch call on the twelfth pitch of his plate appearance, and a run scored; a walk after Adell’s infield hit and a run scored; a walk in the fifth, though he was thrown out at the plate trying to score behind Adell and Wade Meckler; and, a base hit and run scored in the seventh.

Siri—a walk to load the pillows for Rivero’s two-run single in the second; a sacrifice bunt with nobody out to set second and third up for another Rivero two-run single; and, his own two-run single in the fifth, the one on which Madrigal got thrown out trying to make it a three-run job. Siri also singled in the seventh, setting Madrigal up to score from second on another Rivero single.

Are you getting the impression that that’s all just the prelude to the main event? Good. Because Rivero certainly was the main event at the bottom of the heap. You might have forgotten his .220/.264/.260 slash line watching him Sunday. He went from the Mendoza Line to the Carnival Cruise Line.

Second inning: Two-run single. Fourth inning: Two-run single. Sixth inning: Leadoff single. Seventh inning: One-run single. Ninth inning: RBI double. And, as the invaluable Sarah Langs unearthed, Rivero’s five hits and five steaks out of the number nine lineup slot is only the fifth since ancient Yankee pitcher Johnny Murphy did it in 1936.

The three in between, says she: Scott Fletcher, 1992 (on 28 August, same day as Murphy in ’36); Jackie Bradley, Jr. (seven ribs), 2015; and, Austin Wynns (six ribs), 2025. Wynns is the only one of the quintet to nail more than five hits (he had six) cooking his ribs.

The Angels needed something, anything, from somewhere to avoid the sweep, on a weekend when the once-redoubtable Mike Trout—still second on the team in WAR this season—had a weekend slump on his hands. (Hitless in thirteen tries including six strikeouts.)

They got to batter five of seven Dodger pitchers on a day their own starter Jose Soriano got spanked for five runs (four earned) in six innings before their bullpen worked three shutout innings of three-hit ball to finish off. Not even back-to-back Dodger bombs in the sixth (Dalton Rushing, a three-run job; Ryan Ward, a solo) could keep the Angels bottom in its seat.

Suddenly, nobody’s going to say backup catchers aren’t supposed to turn up looking like reincarnated Benches, Berras, or Fisks anymore. It was as if Rivero wanted to tell his fellow bottom-of-the-order boys, “You’re not blocking me at this party’s door.”

Batting six to nine—what a way to make a living. Makes you wonder why the Angels didn’t think of that cup of ambition sooner.

Garret Anderson, RIP: The quiet, infectious Angel

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Garret Anderson

All business in the batter’s box or left field, Garret Anderson was liable to break into an infectious smile and good baseball and life talk with teammates otherwise.

“Maintaining an even strain” was a way of life for legendary military test pilots and often a way of anguish for their wives. It’s also a way of life for enough baseball players, and often a source of anguish for enough of their fans. Show me the player who maintains an even strain, and I’ll show you the fans who mistake it for indifference.

Garret Anderson, whose death of a heart attack at 53 Thursday shocked his sport, was such a player. At least, until his Angels shocked his and their sport and won the 2002 World Series in seven rather thrilling games.

“I used to be called lazy,” he told one reporter, after his three-run double in the fifth inning of Game Seven put the Angels ahead to stay. “Now that we win a World Series, I’m called graceful.”

Anderson at the plate was a sight more likely to inspire engineers than artists. He didn’t look at pitchers as though he wanted to carve his initials into their foreheads. He didn’t look or act like an ogre measuring up his next meal or a junkyard dog finding intruders under every wreck. He swung methodically but attentively, line drives a specialty, even if he did win the 2003 Home Run Derby.

“So stoic was Anderson in the box,” wrote Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci in tribute, “that he came to the plate 9,177 times and saw 30,503 pitches and was hit by only eight of those pitches, the fewest ever by anyone who came to the plate 9,000 times. There was no filigree to Anderson. No self-promotion. Nothing extraneous. How he played happened to be exactly how he lived his life.”

“That swing that I was using tonight is not a swing that I try to use during the season,” he said after he won that Derby. “It was just strictly for trying to hit balls over the fence. During the season, mentally and physically, I don’t do that. I look for mistakes and try to hit them hard.”

Pitchers, other opponents, and even teammates understimated or dismissed Anderson at their own peril. In a seventeen-year career, all but two seasons of which were with the Angels, Anderson was as reliable as the day or night was long. He led the American League back-to-back in doubles; he averaged 21 home runs per 162 games; he didn’t walk much but only ever struck out 100 times once; he finished with his play in left field worth 95 total zone runs above his league average, fourth on the all-time list.

Still, there were those who assumed Anderson too benign to make the Big Plays. They assumed incorrectly.  “He doesn’t dive for balls because he gets there quicker than most guys,” said Darin Erstad, Anderson’s longtime Angels outfield partner, and a classic junkyard dog type of player. If that type holds Anderson in high esteem, best listen.

Not that Anderson was allergic to diving or lunging. He simply thought it meant he’d been caught unawares for a very rare moment. “I never should have had to dive for that ball,” Anderson once said after making a diving catch against the Twins. “I got a bad jump. I study hitters. I have an idea of where the ball is going. I don’t dive because I don’t have to.”

Somewhere in the Elysian Fields, Joe DiMaggio must be grinning, if not ready to mix Anderson a tall, cold one.

So the 2003 All-Star Game MVP didn’t resemble the offspring of a secret in vitro union between Rickey Henderson and Robin Williams. The laugh tillers still need the straight men.

“His passion to play this game was very real, and although maybe it didn’t manifest itself the way it did with some other players, Garret played hard, he wanted to win,” said his longtime Angels manager Mike Scioscia, when Anderson was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame. “He’s got that internal competitive nature that every great player has to have, and he was really the foundation of our championship run back in 2002 and for many other years. He just was a terrific talent and a terrific person.”

Teammates were also among the first to get tastes of Anderson’s dry, disarming wit. Midwest-born former first baseman Scott Spiezio learned the hard way when his fashion sense, or lack thereoff, came into Anderson’s sights. “I’d get on the [team] plane, he’d be like, ‘Spiez, you got on a horse blanket? You’re giving me allergies’,” Spiezio said. “Before you know it, I’m buying Canali, Hugo Boss and Armani.”

Like George Harrison’s reputation as the “Quiet Beatle,” Anderson’s reputation as the Quiet Angel was often deceptive. And, like Harrison, in a good way.

Win or lose, by blowout or by single run, Anderson prided himself and his best teammates on consistency, whether fellow stoics or class clowns alike. “You can’t get wrapped up in one game,” he said in April 2002, after the Angels blew Cleveland out 21-2 one fine day.

Guys’ personalities on this team are the same day-to-day. Guys are walking around the clubhouse the same way they were last week when we were getting our butts kicked. That’s good to see. We have a lot of games to play.

“Yes, he was quiet, but let me tell you that if you entered his inner circle, he was deeply, deeply engaging, even loquacious,” said Joe Maddon, eventually a World Series-winning manager himself but then the Angels’s bench coach. “I so enjoyed our conversations. He was just a sweetheart of a guy. All of us who knew him are just broken up about [his death]. We all loved him. This is really, really hard.”

Maybe the hardest hit might have been Tim Salmon, drafted by the Angels a year before Anderson. A pair of southern California guys, one from Los Angeles (Anderson) and one from Long Beach (Salmon), who forged a deep brotherhood out of opposites, but also out of a few common threads (each married their high school sweethearts, for one), Anderson’s even strain somehow finding its neatest complement in the far more outgoing Kingfish.

“I mean, it’s devastating. As devastating as anything can be in your life,” Salmon began when reached by a reporter.

We’ve pretty much been in this game together at the same time the whole time. I just remember seeing this kid driving this really nice Mustang [in their instructional league days]. He must’ve spent his entire signing bonus on it. Here comes this tall, lanky kid. I was like, ‘Oh, what kind of attitude we’re gonna have here?’ And it was the complete opposite. He was just so mild-mannered and quiet, and you had to draw it out. But he was infectious. He became a favorite of his teammates from the beginning.

“When I first got drafted,” said Angels outfielder/DH Mike Trout, long enough The Man in Anaheim before the injury bug rudely interrupted him, and the only Angel to score more runs lifetime than Anderson, “[Anderson] was the guy. He meant a lot to this organization . . . I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything bad said about him. It’s just a tough, tough loss.”

Anderson’s impact wasn’t just on his own team. He made a big impression on another southern California kid who grew up making Anderson—who was also respected for signing autographs for kids for long periods daily while he played—his baseball hero.

“You always hear, ‘Don’t meet your heroes’,” said Freddie Freeman, the Dodgers’s Hall of Fame-bound first baseman. “But then I got to meet him, and I was like, ‘I’m glad I did.’ Because he was a beautiful man. And I wish he was still here. He meant a lot to so many people … I’m at a loss for words really.”

The only people to whom he could mean more were his wife, Teresa; their daughters, Brianne and Bailey; and, their son, Garret (Trey) Anderson III. As great as baseball’s grief is, theirs is greater. Lord watch over them as You welcomed him home, a little bit early, but no less safe and sound.

Three swipes, you’re out

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Jo Adell

Jo Adell (7) holds the ball in his glove aloft after his third Saturday night home run theft proved the most spectaculer of the three.

Let’s assume there were cynics in Angel Stadium Saturday. Let’s assume at least a few of them said, “I’d like to see him do that again,” when Jo Adell took a flying leap and robbed Mariners star catcher Cal Raleigh of a home run. Those cynics and Raleigh hadn’t seen anything yet.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a guy rob two homers in one game, much less three,” said Raleigh after the game. “Baseball can amaze you night in and night out. You can see something you’ve never seen before. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Did the Big Dumper say three?

He did.

And he wasn’t just whistling tea kettle, either.

Raleigh was only the second batter of the game. It took until the eighth inning for Adell to get another crack at grand theft homer, when Josh Naylor lofted a long fly to just about the same right center field real estate over which Raleigh tried to fly. Once again, Adell took a flying leap. Once again, he snatched the fly before it could hit the high wall above the yellow line that determines whether a drive might be a homer or not when hitting the wall.

Adell had one more piece of business to tend an inning later. This time, J.P. Crawford thought for dead last certain that his long fly toward the seats behind the lower right field corner wall would make it into those seats for the run that eluded the Mariners all game long to that point.

Not quite.

Adell ran toward that wall, leaped with his back to the fans in that section, extended his glove hand, and speared the ball, snapping his glove around a split half-second before he fell all the way behind the wall . . . before springing up none the worse for wear and with the ball still secured.

Only two players stole four home runs at all all last season, Jacob Young of the Nationals and Fernando Tatis, Jr. of the Padres. Adell stole three of them in one night’s work.

For an outfielder who’d always had the tools but not always the results, you could only imagine what was or wasn’t shooting into and back out of his head after the Angels banked the 1-0 win. (The lone run? Zach Neto taking Emerson Hancock’s fourth service of the game over the left center field fence in the first.)

“Defense was something that I struggled with,” Adell told reporters postgame. “Just finding ways to improve and get better and find a way to learn. At the end of the day, defense is one of those things where it’s just about trying to get the job done.”

Sounds very much like a man who took some wise counsel on more than one occasion from former Angel and longtime former Twins center field star Torii Hunter. But what did Hunter think? “It’s amazing, man,” said the man who’s mentored Adell during spring trainings. “That’s probably the greatest defensive game I’ve ever seen.”

“Front row seat to the Jo Show,” Xtweeted Mike Trout, whose healthy resurgent season took a rude but hopefully very short disruption Sunday afternoon, incurring a contusion when hit by a pitch late in the Angels’s 8-7 win.

“You just get there, and it’s just decision-making,” said Adell of his backward leap and fall while robbing Crawford. “Just got there, and was able to fall over and end up in somebody’s lap. I don’t know who, but it was a softer landing than I thought it would be. It’s kind of crazy.”

“Kind of crazy” might be a kind way to phrase it. He may have been lucky the landing was far more shallow than the one Tampa Bay’s Manuel Margot had catching one in a flying leap over a right-side wall with a deeper landing in Game Two of the 2020 American League Championship Series. But then Margot was lucky to come up with his skeleton intact.

The Mariners proved to be good sports about it all. On their clubhouse bulletin board, someone inscribed the Sunday game plan: “Don’t hit the ball to Joseph Adell.” They only hit three in Adell’s direction Sunday—once for a double, once a home run, and once an RBI single.

The home run, from second baseman Cole Young in the top of the fifth, flew high enough over the right field fence in front of a ballpark maintenance alley that Adell couldn’t have even thought of stealing it, even by catapult. Even the best of thieves need time off for good behaviour.

“I loved every challenge of playing third base”

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Adrián Beltré

He hit home runs on one knee, he was a human highlight reel at third base. Welcome to Cooperstown!

Of all the stories that abounded this weekend about Adrián Beltré, on the threshold of his induction into the Hall of Fame, there’s one which may be forgotten except by Angel fans left (as almost usual) to ponder what might have been. It’s the story of the Angels pursuing Beltré as a free agent after he spent five often injury-plagued seasons in Seattle.

Essentially, Angels owner Arte Moreno wanted Beltré in the proverbial worst way possible, after the Dodgers who reared him were willing to let him escape to the Mariners in free agency—despite Beltré having just led the Show with 48 home runs in 2004—because then-owner Frank McCourt didn’t want to pay what the Mariners ultimately did.

Beltré went from the Mariners to the Red Sox on a one-year, prove-it kind of deal. When that lone Boston season ended in October 2010, Moreno kept Beltré in his sights. But nothing the Angels presented Beltré impressed him enough to sign with them. He opted to sign with the Rangers instead. Moreno was so unamused he ordered his then-general manager Tony Reagins to deal for Blue Jays outfielder/slugger Vernon Wells.

Well. The Angels learned the hard way (don’t they always?) that Wells was damaged goods. The fellow they sent the Jays to get him, bat-first catcher Mike Napoli, would join Beltré for a hard-earned trip to a World Series that would break their hearts, before moving on to help Cleveland to a pennant and the Red Sox to the 2018 World Series triumph.

Meanwhile, before leaving Seattle for a one-year, show-us deal with the Red Sox, Beltré by his own admission finally learned he could have a shipload of fun playing baseball without losing the focus, the discipline, or the outlying durability that were going to make him a Hall of Famer in the first place. With the Rangers, he finished his ascent into what Baseball-Reference calls the number four all-around third baseman ever and, concurrently, built and secured a reputation as a team-first Fun Guy.

Nail his 3,000th lifetime major league hit? Party time—for the whole team and then some. “After he got 3,000 hits he had a party,” says Rangers in-game reporter Emily Jones to The Athletic‘s Britt Ghiroli and Chad Jennings. “It was like our clubhouse moved to this place. Every clubbie. Every trainer. Every massage therapist. He was extremely inclusive.”

“He was the oldest guy on the field,” says his former Rangers teammate Elvis Andrus, “but acted like the youngest.”

Beltre’s fun-loving rep went hand in glove with being a veteran clubhouse leader to whom even his manager often deferred. “If he stared at you some kind of way,” says Ron Washington, now managing the Angels but then managing the Rangers, “you knew he meant business. A couple of times, I got off my perch to go get (on a player). He would stop me and say, ‘Let me get it, skip’.’

“I saw him chew veterans,” says one-time Rangers batting coach Dave Magadan, “like they were 19-year-old rookies.”

But he also never forgot teammates, even after he retired. Lots of players can make their teammates go with the flow during arduous seasons. Beltré made them friends. Even if he might chew them out one day, he’d re-cement the friendship side by asking, “You know why I did that, right?”

Former Rangers teammate Mitch Moreland remembers taking a group of later Athletics teammates to a Seattle restaurant to which Beltré had taken a host of Rangers once upon a time. “I called (Beltré) and I was like, ‘Hey, what was the guy’s name at Metropolitan? I’m going to take the boys there’.”

He goes, “Oh, I got you.” So, he called the guy up, set it up. I took the whole team over there, we ate, and I got ready to get the bill, and Adrián had picked it up. For the Oakland A’s. After he was retired.

What of the once-familiar running gag involving Beltré’s real distaste for having his head touched and teammates—usually spearheaded by Andrus—going to great lengths to touch it and get away with it? “I still do,” Andrus says. “He still doesn’t like it. That’s what I am going to try to do at Cooperstown . . . I need to touch his head. I need to touch his head while he’s talking!”

He didn’t get anywhere close to that. Hall of Famer David Ortiz did, right smack at the podium.

But no matter. The third baseman who declined a grand farewell tour didn’t need any further validation for his place in the Hall of Fame. Those who do, however, should marry his 27.0 defensive wins above replacement level player (WAR) to his Real Batting Average (total bases + walks + intentional walks + sacrifice flies + hit by pitches, divided by total plate appearances) among Hall third basemen whose careers were in the post-World War II/post-integration/night-ball era:

HOF 3B PA TB BB IBB SF HBP RBA
Mike Schmidt 10062 4404 1507 201 108 79 .626
Chipper Jones 10614 4755 1512 177 97 18 .618
Eddie Mathews 10100 4349 1444 142 58 26 .596
Scott Rolen 8518 3628 899 57 93 127 .564
George Brett 11625 5044 1096 229 120 33 .561
Ron Santo 9397 3779 1108 94 94 38 .544
Wade Boggs 10740 4064 1412 180 96 23 .538
Adrián Beltré 12130 5309 848 112 103 97 .533
Paul Molitor 12167 4854 1094 100 109 47 .510
Brooks Robinson 11782 4270 860 120 114 53 .458
HOF AVG .555

He’s not higher there because a) he drew far less unintentional walks than most of the men on that list; and, b) that aforementioned durability led him to playing through injuries insanely enough to cause him a few so-so seasons that pulled his numbers down somewhat. But as a defensive third baseman he’s the second-most run-preventive player (+168) who ever worked that real estate . . . a mere 125 behind a guy named Robinson.

“I loved every challenge of playing third base,” said the first third baseman in Show history to nail 400+ home runs and 3000+ hits. “I was hooked. Those hot shots, slow ground balls, double plays, I couldn’t get enough of them.” Come Sunday, the Cooperstown gathering almost couldn’t get enough of Beltré, either.

The Angels star in “Forever Framber”

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Nolan Schanuel

Nolan Schanuel crosses the plate after starting the Angels’ fifth-inning demolition of Framber Valdez Monday.

Framber Valdez started looking a little shaky in the fourth inning Monday. The good news was his Astros supporting him with a 4-1 lead against the Angels and padding it to 6-1 in the bottom of the fourth. The bad news was the top of the fifth.

It wasn’t just that the Angels blasted seven runs in that half inning. It was Astros manager Joe Espada leaving Valdez in to take a beating like that in the first place. Especially considering Espada’s postgame valedictory after the Angels finished what they finally started, a 9-7 win for their fourth win in five games.

“He just kind of was lost,” Espada told reporters postgame. “Started leaving some pitches in the heart of the plate and they put some really good swings on them. “His stuff was really good . . . just that fifth inning he kind of lost the feel for the zone.”

Valdez didn’t look too good in the fourth, either. After more or less cruising through the first three, he threw thirteen pitches only five of which looked genuinely good. He may have been fortunate that the Angels got only two singles in the inning while otherwise grounding into a force out and whacking into an inning-ending double play.

But after Astros left fielder Mauricio Dubón hit a two-run homer off Angels starter Reid Detmers in the bottom of the fourth to set that short-lived 6-1 Astros lead, the Angels went to work almost at once in the top of the fifth, when designated hitter Willie Calhoun smacked a two-strike single to right.

They weren’t exactly looking to detonate bombs. Nobody overswung, nobody tried to turn into a B-2 pilot. But sometimes you can just swing sensibly and discover you’ve a) still got some serious munitions in your bat; and, b) a pitcher who’s throwing you cannonballs without gunpowder behind them.

Valdez walked shortstop Zach Neto on a full count and struck second baseman Kyren Paris out to follow. Up stepped first baseman Nolan Schanuel, and Valdez hung a changeup that got hung into the right field seats. With one swing the Angels cut the Astros’ lead to two.

After a ground out right back to the box, Valdez was all over the place working to left fielder Tyler Ward before Ward finally singled up the pipe. He hung another changeup, sort of, to center fielder Kevin Pillar (he whom the Angels found in the junkyard after Mike Trout went down with a knee injury), and was lucky Pillar could only turn it into a single to left.

Espada still didn’t seem to have a bullpen option at the ready. He’d pay for it with Valdez’s next two pitches. Angels catcher Logan O’Hoppe saw a curve ball hanging deliciously enough to send well into the Crawford Boxes, and right fielder Jo Adell sent a hanging sinker the other way into the right field seats almost immediately to follow.

Just like that, the RBI single by Astros catcher Yainer Díaz and three-run homer by second base mainstay José Altuve in the bottom of the second to stake that early 4-1 lead became pleasant memories for Minute Maid Park fans and just a nuisance of mosquitoes agains which the Angels opened seven cans of Raid in the fifth.

“Things got out of hand there,” Valdez said postgame. “The game started off well and sometimes things happened.”

Unlike Valdez’s previous start, which came a day after the Astros practically emptied the bullpen following Ronel Blanco’s ejection (and subsequent suspension) for sticky stuff in the glove, and which saw Valdez take his team deep en route a 3-0 win, the Astro pen wasn’t exactly taxed for Monday.

But no relief was seen until the top of the sixth, with Rafael Montero taking over. He got a rude hello when Neto caught hold of a rising fastball and sent it to the Boxes. That was all the scoring for the Angels and all they really needed, despite some Astro friskiness in the ninth.

Adell may have broken the Astro spirit to stay for the game when he took off running after Díaz’s leadoff drive to right and took a flying leap to steal a homer from Díaz before he hit the fence padding. “He’s growing in front of your face,” said Angels manager Ron Washington postgame. “That was a big-time play and that play right there may have saved the game.”

It might have, considering Dubón singling to follow and Kyle Tucker driving him home with a base hit an out later. But Angels reliever Carlos Estevez held on despite walking Yordan Alvarez to get Alex Bregman—the veteran third baseman who was usually capable with first and second and two out, able to win it with one swing, until this year (.125/.125/.125 slash in this situation)—to fly out to not-too-deep center for the game.

The Angels set a new precedent at Espada’s and Valdez’s expense, too: this was the first time in the Angels’ history that four players 25 or under cleared the fences in the same game.

“I didn’t realize it until after the fact,” O’Hoppe told reporters. “None of us have said it out loud, but I feel like all of us internally had been waiting for a moment like that for a little while.”

“They’re growing up,” Washington observed. “They’re starting to figure things out. They really didn’t try to do too much and they ended up doing a lot. And that’s what it’s about.” Don’t look now, but they’re 7-6 in their past thirteen games including the four-of-five sealed Monday.

Maybe that thinking brings further unforeseen reward. Especially when the other guys’ manager doesn’t have an immediate bullpen answer for a starter who’s begun losing his stuff clearly enough. The Angels won’t get that lucky that often, but maybe continuing to think less-brings-more begins making their own luck.