_________

Welcome to hell, Angel fans…

Are you guys as bummed as I am?

I think Howie Kendrick should get a full share of the BoSox playoff prize money.

He earned it with some of the most pathetic defense I’ve seen played in an Angel playoff series.

And when we’re at it, be sure and reserve a share for Eric Aybar. Not for missing the bunt, but for failing to sacrifice his body after missing the bunt. In a suicide squeeze it’s the batter’s responsibility to get wood on the ball. If he can’t get wood on the ball, it’s his responsibility to have his body positioned so that in the event that he misses, he gets flesh on the ball.

For those of you who don’t know, a hit batsman while in the process of swinging with less than two strikes is treated the same as a foul ball. Strike one and the lead runner walks leisurely back to the bag.

Save another playoff share for our own Mike “Einstein” Soscia for leaving the near crippled Vlady in the 8th inning of Game 1 with the score tied and him as the lead runner on 1st base, and would be pinch runner Reggie Willits resting comfortably in the dugout.

As a matter of fact, for the lightbulb going off in his head with the idea of batting Garret Anderson in the two spot – a spot he hadn’t seen since 1995 – give Soscia another full share for that stupendous idea. Didn’t so much fake out the Red Sox as it did GA who looked completely puzzled everytime he was at the plate.

He’s still the best manager in baseball, but sadly that doesn’t say much for the rest of the league…

If you ever read anything I’ve posted you know Gene Mauch is my all time managerial hero. Gene handed the umpire a different lineup card every day. The only thing you could count on was that Brian Downing would be batting lead off.

Now, there is a science behind this. By doing this, hitters see a greater variety of pitches because they may be protected in the lineup one day and then find themselves batting in front of a .240 utility infielder the next. It’s a good idea because as it turns out, your lead off hitter is only batting lead off in the 1st inning. After that, everyone in the line-up has to take their turn batting lead off in the subsequent innings. Therefore, Mauch was actually doing two things: 1. he trained every hitter in the lineup to be a leadoff hitter by showing them a greater variety of pitch sequences throughout the season; and 2. he made it very very difficult for a battery to prepare to face an Angel lineup when the opposition didn’t know who was going to be in the line-up and in which order they’d see them.

Pretty smart hey?

Now back to 2008.

The wrong time to begin such a hitting program is Game 1 of the ALDS.

What an idiot. What a moron. Watching Mike manage Game 1 brought back memories of the 1986 World Series game 6 when Bill Buckner watched the ball skirt between his legs in the 10th inning to give away the game to New York. To be a fan of baseball managers is to know that the real fault of the 1986 World Series belongs squarely on the shoulders of John McNamara who suddenly went brain dead while in the bottom of the 10th inning when his team had a 5-3 lead and he mysteriously didn’t put in a defensive replacement for the nearly crippled Billy Buck.

Fans, being the geniuses they are, blame Buckner to this day while McNamara escaped unscathed.

All that being said and all anger aside, again, Soscia is the best manager in baseball and we are lucky to have him.

To me he combines the strategies of the two best little ball managers I’ve ever seen – Whitey Herzog and Gene Mauch.

Interestingly, he doesn’t remind me at all of Tommy Lasorda. He doesn’t get emotional as Tommy did, he doesn’t step into the third base coaching position to motivate his players during team slumps as Tommy did, and most importantly, he doesn’t buy into the importance of left handed relief as Tommy did.

But in fact he did choke big time in this playoff series. The sooner we all own up to that the sooner we can move on and prepare for the hang over in the coming winter months.

Steve Boyd

p.s. Go Angels!!!

I enjoy reading your game recaps and analysis of Angels’ games. Have you heard about bleacherreport.com? Its an open source sports network where you can syndicate your blog for free. We have over 2 million unique views per day and I would strongly encourage you to check it out. Shoot me an email if this sounds like something you’d be interested in: rory@bleacherreport.com

Thanks and keep on writing!

-kansasblogger