For Angels, Thrill of Victory, Then a Rush of Relief
ANAHEIM, Calif. — If it was going to end, this was not the way the Los Angeles Angels wanted it to. Not with Manager Mike Scioscia wondering if he had handled a pitching change like Grady Little. Not with John Lackey seething about a strike that the plate umpire said was not. And not with the bullpen blowing a four-run lead in the blink of an eye.
And so with all of that on his shoulders — and with two outs and the count full — Brian Fuentes looked around at the loaded bases, broke from the stretch and delivered a fastball to Nick Swisher.
“It’s the biggest moment you could possibly have in the game,” Fuentes said, his left shoulder wrapped in ice. “It was a big moment for Nick and me, too. The moment itself didn’t seem that big at the time. I knew what I had to do. I knew the consequences, but doing what I do, I guess you just shuffle that to the back and say, make this pitch.”
Swisher swung and hit a towering pop-up that shortstop Erick Aybar squeezed with both hands. With that the Angels secured a 7-6 victory that not only earned them another game, narrowing the Yankees’ edge in the American League Championship Series to 3-2, but also spared them a long winter of remorse.
“That was a hair-pulling experience,” said Jered Weaver, after making the second relief appearance of his career.
“I’ve got a headache,” said Torii Hunter, who came off the field after the Yankees scored six runs in the seventh inning and slammed his glove in the dugout. “I got gray hair, if I let my hair grow out.”
Of course, Hunter wore a huge smile, too, one that was shared around the clubhouse.
It was one of relief, exhilaration and thanksgiving — that Vladimir Guerrero and Kendry Morales delivered two-out hits to tie the score and then get the Angels the lead again, and that Fuentes held on to it after two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases with two outs.
“I can’t say enough about the hitters coming back and scoring runs after that rough inning,” said Lackey, who has at times criticized the Angels’ lack of offense in the playoffs. “They could have easily checked it in right there. We showed a lot about who we are.”
Scioscia is considered one of the best managers in baseball, and the Angels’ owner, Arte Moreno, thought enough of Scioscia to sign him a 10-year contract extension to manage the team through the 2018 season. But if the Angels had lost Thursday, it would have been the second consecutive season that ended after one of Scioscia’s decisions backfired.
A year ago, he called for a suicide squeeze in the ninth inning of a tied Game 4 against Boston, but Aybar whiffed on the bunt and Reggie Willits was an easy out. The Red Sox scored in the bottom of the inning to win the series.
Scioscia could have expected similar second-guessing when he removed Lackey with two outs, the bases loaded and the Angels holding a 4-0 lead in the seventh. Lackey had spent the evening burnishing his reputation as a big-game pitcher by using his curveball early in the count and then finishing off the Yankees with fastballs.
“I thought I had plenty left,” Lackey said.
But Scioscia preferred to have the left-hander Darren Oliver, who had not allowed a run in six innings of relief in the playoffs, face the switch-hitting Mark Teixeira.
The results were disastrous. Teixeira ripped a bases-clearing double, and after Oliver intentionally walked Alex Rodriguez, he allowed a single to Hideki Matsui that tied the score at 4-4. Kevin Jepsen relieved Oliver and served up a two-run triple to Robinson Cano.
“I just with my heart said, ‘Hey, leave John in.’ ” Scioscia said. “My head said, ‘Let’s try to turn Tex around and get out of that inning right there.’ ” I just have a lot of confidence in John. He might have had enough to get in there and get Tex out, but I though to turn him around at that point was the move. Obviously, it didn’t work.”
Hunter, who will answer almost any question, would not touch one about the pitching change.
“That’s a hot tamale right there,” he said, shaking his head. “I just work here.”
Lackey, for his part, was seething — not so much about being pulled as about a 3-2 pitch he threw to Jorge Posada in the seventh inning that was called a ball by the plate umpire Fieldin Culbreth. Lackey flinched and then threw his arms out at Culbreth, asking where the pitch was. Culbreth threw his arms out back at Lackey.
“That’s a pretty big spot,” Lackey said in explaining his displeasure.
Lackey was given a rousing ovation as he walked off the field, and tipped his cap to the crowd, a rare show of emotion from the West Texas native. Might his gesture have been an acknowledgment that, as an impending free agent, Thursday could have been his last game as an Angel?
“I’m not going to go there,” said Lackey, who had plenty of company around the clubhouse in not wanting to consider what might have been.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — If it was going to end, this was not the way the Los Angeles Angels wanted it to. Not with Manager Mike Scioscia wondering if he had handled a pitching change like Grady Little. Not with John Lackey seething about a strike that the plate umpire said was not. And not with the bullpen blowing a four-run lead in the blink of an eye.
And so with all of that on his shoulders — and with two outs and the count full — Brian Fuentes looked around at the loaded bases, broke from the stretch and delivered a fastball to Nick Swisher.
“It’s the biggest moment you could possibly have in the game,” Fuentes said, his left shoulder wrapped in ice. “It was a big moment for Nick and me, too. The moment itself didn’t seem that big at the time. I knew what I had to do. I knew the consequences, but doing what I do, I guess you just shuffle that to the back and say, make this pitch.”
Swisher swung and hit a towering pop-up that shortstop Erick Aybar squeezed with both hands. With that the Angels secured a 7-6 victory that not only earned them another game, narrowing the Yankees’ edge in the American League Championship Series to 3-2, but also spared them a long winter of remorse.
“That was a hair-pulling experience,” said Jered Weaver, after making the second relief appearance of his career.
“I’ve got a headache,” said Torii Hunter, who came off the field after the Yankees scored six runs in the seventh inning and slammed his glove in the dugout. “I got gray hair, if I let my hair grow out.”
Of course, Hunter wore a huge smile, too, one that was shared around the clubhouse.
It was one of relief, exhilaration and thanksgiving — that Vladimir Guerrero and Kendry Morales delivered two-out hits to tie the score and then get the Angels the lead again, and that Fuentes held on to it after two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases with two outs.
“I can’t say enough about the hitters coming back and scoring runs after that rough inning,” said Lackey, who has at times criticized the Angels’ lack of offense in the playoffs. “They could have easily checked it in right there. We showed a lot about who we are.”
Scioscia is considered one of the best managers in baseball, and the Angels’ owner, Arte Moreno, thought enough of Scioscia to sign him a 10-year contract extension to manage the team through the 2018 season. But if the Angels had lost Thursday, it would have been the second consecutive season that ended after one of Scioscia’s decisions backfired.
A year ago, he called for a suicide squeeze in the ninth inning of a tied Game 4 against Boston, but Aybar whiffed on the bunt and Reggie Willits was an easy out. The Red Sox scored in the bottom of the inning to win the series.
Scioscia could have expected similar second-guessing when he removed Lackey with two outs, the bases loaded and the Angels holding a 4-0 lead in the seventh. Lackey had spent the evening burnishing his reputation as a big-game pitcher by using his curveball early in the count and then finishing off the Yankees with fastballs.
“I thought I had plenty left,” Lackey said.
But Scioscia preferred to have the left-hander Darren Oliver, who had not allowed a run in six innings of relief in the playoffs, face the switch-hitting Mark Teixeira.
The results were disastrous. Teixeira ripped a bases-clearing double, and after Oliver intentionally walked Alex Rodriguez, he allowed a single to Hideki Matsui that tied the score at 4-4. Kevin Jepsen relieved Oliver and served up a two-run triple to Robinson Cano.
“I just with my heart said, ‘Hey, leave John in.’ ” Scioscia said. “My head said, ‘Let’s try to turn Tex around and get out of that inning right there.’ ” I just have a lot of confidence in John. He might have had enough to get in there and get Tex out, but I though to turn him around at that point was the move. Obviously, it didn’t work.”
Hunter, who will answer almost any question, would not touch one about the pitching change.
“That’s a hot tamale right there,” he said, shaking his head. “I just work here.”
Lackey, for his part, was seething — not so much about being pulled as about a 3-2 pitch he threw to Jorge Posada in the seventh inning that was called a ball by the plate umpire Fieldin Culbreth. Lackey flinched and then threw his arms out at Culbreth, asking where the pitch was. Culbreth threw his arms out back at Lackey.
“That’s a pretty big spot,” Lackey said in explaining his displeasure.
Lackey was given a rousing ovation as he walked off the field, and tipped his cap to the crowd, a rare show of emotion from the West Texas native. Might his gesture have been an acknowledgment that, as an impending free agent, Thursday could have been his last game as an Angel?
“I’m not going to go there,” said Lackey, who had plenty of company around the clubhouse in not wanting to consider what might have been.
Source: New York Times
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