Looking Forward to 2009: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

by Los Angeles Waterloo of Black Hawk

As sports fans of a certain passion, we are used to deploying words like “disaster” and “catastrophe” where they don’t really belong.  When invested in a game we react to each pitch and swing as though the Earth’s very rotation hangs in balance.  Though the non-fan may not realize or appreciate our fervor, it serves a useful and very human purpose:  we feel a part of something bigger, of a community of fans, players, and coaches.  We identify with young men we’ve never met, men with whom we may share nothing in common but the color of a uniform, but men we’ve watched grow and mature and hone their skills to the point where they stand amongst the world’s elite.  We cannot match that talent, but we can invest ourselves and our emotions, boisterous applause and righteous anger serving as our tools of participation.  And in so participating we share the joys and disappointments of “our” players, and their failures affect us.  And so we can freely use the words “disaster” and “catastrophe”, comfortably shielded in a world of metaphor.

On the evening of April 8 and morning of April 9, Angel fans were pushed from the disaster of metaphor into the catastrophe of the real.  Nick Adenhart pitched against the A’s; acclaimed by many the Angels’ top prospect, Adenhart had blown through the lowest levels of the minors before running into some control issues in the AA Texas League – at the sweet young age of 20.  Those struggles blossomed even more in 2008 in AAA and in a major league cup of coffee, but Adenhart was so young for his leagues, so possessing of “stuff”, so dedicated and level-headed, that any setbacks seemed temporary and minor, the sort of setbacks any young athlete must traverse in order to rise to the top of the top.

Adenhart should have been in AAA, honing his craft, but the demons who so long haunted the Angels prior to 2002 had decided to re-occur in 2009, and three of the Angels best starting pitchers – John Lackey, Ervin Santana, and Kelvim Escobar – started the season on the disabled list.  The top prospect had a top spring training, and earned his shot in the rotation.

For six innings Adenhart bobbed and weaved, demonstrating both what he had to work on as he grew and what phenomenal potential he had.  His control wavered at times, but he exhibited poise and maturity beyond his years.  With his fastball teetering on the edges of the strike zone, and two men on against Jason Giambi in the fifth, Adenhart came in with a curveball for a strike and finished off Giambi with back-to-back changeups to secure the fourth of his five strikeouts in the game.  He escaped without allowing a run, and came back in the sixth reborn:  seven pitches, seven strikes, three outs, six shutout innings, and a 3-0 lead.  Adenhart walked off the mound to an ovation from a crowd that is always eager to applaud and encourage its young starters; it was the last ovation Nick Adenhart would ever hear.

Of course, we didn’t know that at the time; in fact, at the time … well, I watched the game on the DVR that night, late that night.  Little did I know that at the exact moment I was cheering Adenhart’s marvelous change-ups to Giambi, the young man who I had foolishly decided to never go see pitch in Rancho Cucamonga was in an operating room, fighting a losing battle for his life.  All I knew was that my team had a 3-0 lead with Jose Arredondo, Scot Shields, and Brian Fuentes, allegedly one of the top back-of-the-bullpens in the majors, coming up. 

And within an hour, the Angels had lost 6-4.  Arredondo allowed two runs, Shields one, and Fuentes three.  Disaster.  Catastrophe.

And then, hours later, perspective. 

When the Angels returned to the field two nights later, with Jered Weaver, who was going to put up Nick Adenhart in his Long Beach home two days hence, on the mound, there was a strange buzz in the air; a buzz of anticipation, a buzz of uncertainty, a buzz of tears.  Weaver tapped the image of his friend; he inscribed his initials in the mound.  And he pitched his heart out.  The Angels gave it what they could; playing the game, they all said, was the easy part.  They won, and the fans in attendance participated, giving their – yes, their – players a standing ovation at game’s end.  An outpouring of emotion, support, and identification – yes, we are here for you, we are in this together.  We are all a part of something bigger.

It is impossible, of course, to know how any individual will respond to tragedy, much less a group of thirty players and coaches, all of different backgrounds and life experiences.  Back in 2002, the St. Louis Cardinals were 40-31 the day Darryl Kile died; they lost five of their next seven games, though they eventually made the playoffs.  We tend to think of players as a set of probabilities, rolling dice on each at-bat and then following the commands of the throw.  But the dice are not always even, and a heavy heart can weigh them down.  And sometimes the game can lift a heavy heart – after Lyman Bostock was murdered in 1978, the Angels went on a four-game winning streak.

It is impossible for us to judge the state of the Angels right now.  They are playing with an uncharacteristic lack of focus on the field, but that is something that happens – it happened in the ALDS last year, too.  Rex Hudler tells us on the telecasts that the clubhouse is not as lively as it was, but we can also see players in the dugout smiling.  But, then again, maybe they’re trying too hard to smile; it seems as though the smallest provocation is met with undue elation, with productive outs and home runs lighting some beacon of joy.  But reading the tea leaves is impossible; perhaps I am projecting my own reactions on to the behavior of my players.

For the Angels have plenty of problems that have nothing to do with mourning.  Not even three weeks into the season, and the team has gone through one full rotation of starting pitchers:  the aforementioned trio that started the season on the DL has added Dustin Moseley, coming off of two of his best starts ever, to its ranks, and the loss of Adenhart has concrete on-field repercussions.  I don’t think there’s a team in baseball that’s designed to go ten-deep in terms of major league-caliber starting pitchers, which is the circumstance in which the Angels now find themselves.

Oddly, in the early going it has not been the rotation that has struggled; through twelve games the Angel starters have an ERA of 2.86.  The real problems have come in the bullpen.  It’s not that Dustin Moseley or Shane Loux are great shakes, but that’s one level of depth that goes away.  Darren Oliver, who actually has pitched himself into a useful bullpen role in Angel red, has also entered the rotation.  But he trained for short duty and is not yet ready to pitch deep into games, meaning that the bullpen is taxed yet again.  The Angel bullpen has an ERA of 8.31, and is walking nearly six men for every nine innings.  The attrition has opened up bullpen spots for the likes of Kevin Jepsen, who can throw in the mid-90s but has never had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of two-to-one or better in the minor leagues, and Jason Bulger, who seems dead set on proving that there is such a thing as a AAAA pitcher.  The Angels keep rolling prospects and failed prospects in, from Rich Thompson (who should stick) to Rafael Rodriguez (who is a few years away from sticking) to Daniel Davidson (a sidearming lefty will never lack for opportunity). 

The Angels have nothing but hope where these young relievers are concerned.  Some of them simply will have to shake out if the Angels want to stick around in a weak division.  The back of the bullpen is likely fine; Arredondo, Shields, and Fuentes have all struggled some in the early going, but Arredondo’s peripherals are solid and Fuentes has been a bit “hit unlucky”, as they say.  Shields’ control has been a mess (two strikeouts against five walks), but Shields usually has a week or two each year where his mechanics are wild and his release point errant.  Unless he has hit a wall and fallen off a cliff, Shields should be expected to produce.

But the team’s problems are not limited to the mound.  In news that in most seasons would qualify as bad, Vlad Guerrero has landed on the DL with a torn pectoral.  It will be at least a month before he returns.  The addition of Bobby Abreu over the offseason has limited the extent to which the Angel offense is Vlad and the Eight Dwarfs, but his is still a damaging loss.  A lack of Vlad transfers substantial plate appearances to hitters who are average or worse, such as Maicer Izturis and Gary Matthews, Jr.  Izturis is an excellent utility infielder and Matthews actually a serviceable reserve when you ignore his price tag, but when Ztu is asked to DH and bat third, as he was when Vlad went down, it may be time to look for better options.

The Angels believe those options exist already.  Juan Rivera has started slow and hit poorly last year coming off a broken leg-marred 2007, but management feels he can regain the form he had in 2006.  Whether or not this faith is well-placed remains to be seen.  The team is also invested in Erick Aybar at shortstop; an able defender and fast runner, Aybar is a ruthless free-swinger and has never been able to convert his speed into productive basestealing.  This leaves the elephant in the system, Brandon Wood, somewhat out to sea.  Wood is off to a hot start in AAA, and given the Angels struggles, it may be time to give him a job and see what happens.  Could it get worse than giving plate appearances to Aybar or Jeff Mathis?

Of course, Mathis will continue to get at-bats, due to his defensive superiority over Mike Napoli.  But Napoli possesses real ultimate power, and is an offensive threat even if he’s hitting .220.  Obviously Napoli cannot catch every day, but the Angels would be well-served to spot him at DH from time to time, or, if they want to get imaginative, at first base, where the jury on Kendry Morales has been in deliberations for several years, with no verdict imminent.

The presence of Chone Figgins at third should also not block Brandon Wood, as Figgins is amongst the most defensively versatile players in the majors.  He has also started the season drawing walks and stealing bases, though the rest of his offensive game is stagnant.  Stagnant also describes to some extent Howie Kendrick’s start; Howie started the season hitting the ball on the button, but with few hits to show for it.  He should, like many of his teammates, come around eventually.  If he and they don’t, the team is in big trouble, as Torii Hunter will not be able to carry this team to the extent he has so far.

But with Vlad out and Lackey and Santana and Escobar still waiting to report for duty, “Looking Forward To” is really all the Angels have, barring the invention of a cosmic reset button.  In many ways, it feels as though the season has yet to begin.  The Angels have the unenviable task of trying to “hang around” for a month or so until their stars return to the lineup.  Luckily, they are in a division that appears to lack a dominant team that can run away and hide.  As of now, it seems possible that at least two of the four key injured players could be back by June, at which point the team and division would look very different from how they look now.  The Angels still have a decent shot at winning the West; if the rotation can be at full-strength, it’s the division’s best, and if Vlad comes back strong the offense should be passable.  The team just needs to hang on; there is, as we have so cruelly been reminded yet again, a beauty to survival.  Let’s just hope that we can all make it through the disasters and catastrophes of 2009 together.