Posts tagged MikeScioscia at FanHouse

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

With a rather sizable assist from Mike Scioscia's hubris-fueled devotion to smallball, the Red Sox are headed back to the ALCS for the fourth time in six years. If recent history tells us anything, Boston might fall behind early -- as it did against New York in 2004 (3-0) and Cleveland in 2007 (3-1) -- but it will find a way to win the series.

These are, after all, the Red Sox. They've been there before. They're Major League Baseball's model franchise. They have dominant starting pitching, a lights-out closer and a mix of experienced veterans and budding youngsters.

But while Boston basks in another winning playoff series, let's take a moment to consider how many problems it is facing as it tries to win another World Series and establish baseball's first dynasty since the Yankees of the late 1990s.

There is a veritable laundry list of concerns:

If there's one commandment that all major league managers should follow I think it's probably this: put your players in position to win baseball games and then let them win it. The worst managers are the ones that try to insert their own strategic visions on teams where simple performance from the players would suffice. Mike Scioscia, a man who is generally lauded as a "great" manager in the press for "doing things right," failed to follow this credo in Game 4 of the ALDS agains the Red Sox and as a result, he lost to them again.

A squeeze bunt. With a left-handed hitter. On a 2-0 count. With one out. With K-Rod in the bullpen. With Game 5 in Angel Stadium and a five-inning start from Dice-K waiting for you if you win. With the top of the order on deck. If you could define "taking the game out of the hands of the players," it would be a video of Erick Aybar's ill-fated bunt attempt in the ninth inning of last night's game with Mike Scioscia staring blankly on to the field as his season went up in flames.

You can tell me Aybar had eight sac bunts this year. I don't care. You can tell me it was a buntable pitch. I don't care. You can tell me the ump got the call wrong when Varitek dropped the ball. I don't care. There are a million ways for the Angels to score Reggie Willits from third base with two chances. There are a million things that can go wrong on a squeeze play. Try to imagine Terry Francona making the same call. You can't do it. Now remember that Francona's teams are 9-1 against Scioscia's in the playoffs. There is an old baseball adage that applies here; bad managers lose far more games than good managers win. Mike Scioscia lost Game 4 for the Angels last night.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

If the Angels can't beat the Red Sox this time around, they might never get a chance to. We heard that sentiment an awful lot coming into the ALDS. Boston was the wild card; Los Angeles was the 100-game winner. The mighty Red Sox were banged up -- potentially without J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and ace Josh Beckett; the Angels were well-rested thanks to an enormous division lead and deeper than ever after a deadline deal for slugger Mark Teixeira.

Consider Game 2 the final indication: This incarnation of the Angels doesn't look like it's ever going to beat the Red Sox in a meaningful October series.

A's GM Billy Beane opined in "Moneyball" that his "s--- doesn't work in the playoffs." Angels GM Tony Reagins and manager Mike Scioscia could easily say the same thing when it comes to facing Boston.

After all, what else can the Halos do to beat the Red Sox in October? They've lost 11 straight postseason games to Boston, but more pertinently, they've lost five in a row in the playoffs over the last two years to this collection of talent.

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Heading into last week, there were two teams in all of baseball with nothing to play for. Sure, the Rays had clinched their first ever playoff appearance, but they still had to hold off the Red Sox for the AL East crown. Four divisions and both wild cards were still unsettled. The Cubs and Angels, however, were on cruise control.

While I'm sure it's nice to not have any pressure to win a major league game, too much of this can be a bad thing because guys can get rusty if it's extended. Rest is good, rust is not.

Let's examine the rest some players on each team have received, and whether or not this has surpassed the threshold of being productive in terms of a prediction of playoff success.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Not Ready for Primetime: Someone has to win the AL Central. Next Thursday either the Twins or White Sox will take the field at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay with a shot at winning the World Series. But after a bullpen meltdown in Chicago and terrible Francisco Liriano start in Minneapolis, it doesn't seem like either team wants it very much.

Roughly a week ago, I wrote about how the Central race was the only one with any real drama, about how the NL wild-card race had lost its appeal because the Mets and Brewers seemed so fragile. Now, the opposite seems true. While the Mets and Brewers run their aces out on three days of rest and scrape and claw for every run, the Twins and White Sox seem determined to back into the playoff picture.

Of course anything can happen once a team gets into the postseason, but the Rays would be an exceptionally tough opponent even if the Twins or White Sox were playing well right now. With both teams playing poorly, it doesn't seem like the winner of the division will matter too much. Either way, it could be a quick first-round exit.

Since the Angels have had the AL West in hand for a while now, manager Mike Scioscia has been able to use the last few weeks to start figuring out what he wants to do for the playoffs. Aside from making sure he gets players some rest, the biggest decision facing Mike was how he was going to set up his starting rotation come playoff time.

Teams usually ditch their five-man rotation in favor of a four-man rotation in the playoffs, which meant that Scioscia had to figure out which one of his starters he was going to be delivering some bad news too. Luckily for Mike, Jon Garland just about made the decision for him.

"If it was my decision, I wouldn't be a starter, not with what I've seen from Ervin Santana, John Lackey, Joe Saunders and Jered Weaver," Garland said before [Thursday's] game against Seattle.

"Whatever Mike wants me to do, I will do. I'm not going to complain. I'll do whatever he wants me to do, the best that I can."

Now, to be fair, Garland was probably going to be the odd man out anyway. Of the Angels five starters, he's been the "worst." While he's second on the team with 14 wins in 2008, he's also had ten more starts than John Lackey, and Garland's ERA is .57 points higher (4.90) than any other starter in the rotation and he has the highest WHIP of the five.

He'll likely be used as a long man out of the bullpen should any of the other four struggle early.

It was a pretty odd sight for Angels fans that have grown accustomed to closer Francisco Rodriguez's celebrations. Ever since K-Rod came to the big leagues, he's always capped off a save by pointing to the sky in a salute to his late grandfather. Well, when Rodriguez picked up his 59th save of the season on Thursday, he didn't point to the sky or celebrate. He just shook his catcher's hand, high-fived some teammates, and went to the clubhouse.

The reason for this is because even though he picked up the save and bailed out an Angels bullpen that did their best to blow a six-run lead, he wasn't very happy with the way he threw the ball on Thursday, or on Wednesday when he blew a save chance. In other words, it sounds like K-Rod may be getting a bit tired.

Which is why it's probably time for Mike Scioscia to shut him down for the remaining week and a half. I'm not saying don't use him at all, but use him as little as possible, just enough to keep his arm loose.

I understood why Scioscia was using Rodriguez so much during the season, as he wanted to win a division, and he wanted to help his closer break Bobby Thigpen's record for saves in a season. Well, both of those goals have now been accomplished, Mike. It would probably serve the Angels a lot better to have Frankie rested and ready for the playoffs instead of bringing him in during a meaningless game against the Athletics.

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

For the first time since the Clinton Administration, Yankee Stadium will be dark this October. The only thing more popular in America than the Yankees, is hating the Yankees, so it seems unlikely that your average non-New York baseball fan will be shedding a tear over the absence of the Bronx Bombers.

The network executives at FOX and TBS, on the other hand, can't be too pleased. People either love or hate the Yankees. Either way, they tune in to watch them in October.

The biggest draw in baseball won't be on the game's biggest stage next month, and the television types have every reason to wring their hands about the enormous void left in their wake. But hope is far from lost.

The 2008 postseason should offer plenty of storylines to keep viewers captivated -- and bean-counting executives happy -- even without the Yankees to kick around (or dote upon or whatever it is your average baseball fan likes to do with them).

With baseball using instant replay for the first time on Wednesday night to give Alex Rodriguez his latest pointless home run (Alex also homered last night to help the Yankees only lose by two), it's obvious we've entered a new age in the sport. Of course, all the opponents of instant replay were against it because they weren't sure where it would end.

Yeah, it only starts with home runs, but soon it will be safe or out, fair or foul, and ultimately, balls and strikes. Well, while it looks like umpires can still judge a pitch's location, we may end up needing robot umpires anyway. The human ones the game utilizes now can't count.

In the fourth inning Thursday, [Sean] Rodriguez struck out on what the scoreboard said was a full-count pitch. But a pitch-by-pitch replay of the at-bat confirmed that Rodriguez actually struck out on a 4-and-2 pitch.

Neither plate umpire Tim Welke nor Angels Manager Mike Scioscia noticed the mistake. At 2-2, Rodriguez said Welke asked Tigers catcher Brandon Inge what the count was.

"He said he thought it was 1-2, and I said I thought it was 1-2 also," Rodriguez said. "He thanked me for my honesty."

See, this is what happens to a sport when they draft players straight out of high school and let them skip college. Their math and counting skills just deteriorate.

So the Red Sox, Dodgers, and Yankees are in the news today. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?

Wait a minute. This is an ANGELS Dugout? The hell is an Angels Dugout?

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of California By Way of the Western Coast of the United States of America a Country Via Great Britain of Europe are on top of the world, but in the world of sports you've got to have something other than your ridiculously long name to complain about, so here it is: Francisco Rodriguez should probably not be pitching as much as he is. But it's Mike Scioscia's job to coach the team, and coach he must. If there's a late inning save situation, who ELSE do you want in there to pitch? Ah, there's the rub.

Tonight's Dugout is after the jump. And after every other jump this week (just in case).