Angels, powerless to stop playoff slide, need to add pop

09.10.2007 06:00 Sport and Travel - Source: USA Today

And they wouldn't be such horrible scores for, say, a soccer team.

But in the baseball playoffs, they won't cut it, and those are the Los Angeles Angels' run totals in their last eight playoff games.

Big surprise, seven of them are losses.

Which brings the Angels to another offseason of taking some solace in their gutsy little offense that is good enough to win the AL West and wondering what might have been if they hadn't been so injured and so unable or unwilling to pull off a trade for another bat.

Their fans have pleaded with general manager Bill Stoneman and owner Arte Moreno for years to add a power hitter to protect free-swinging slugger Vladimir Guerrero.

Stoneman keeps standing pat. Moreno signs pitchers and table-setters but, aside from Guerrero, not big-money sluggers. Together, they have been unwilling to make the kind of bold trade — key prospects or a starting pitcher for a veteran slugger — that the organization's depth would seem to be able to withstand.

And so, at a crucial moment Sunday in a playoff elimination game — bases loaded, two outs, the No. 4 spot in the order due up — the batter was Reggie Willits, a rookie singles hitter who has never hit a major league home run. A gaffe by manager Mike Scioscia?

Well, it's not like he had, say, Alex Rodriguez as an option.

The Rex Sox hit five home runs in the three-game sweep, two each by David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. The Angels hit none.

The Angels' big bat, Guerrero, was 2-for-10, both singles. The one time he could have made a difference Sunday, hitting in front of Willits, Boston pitcher Curt Schilling pitched around him.

Isn't this the kind of situation the Angels must avoid if they are to advance past the first round of the playoffs?

After the game Sunday, Scioscia pondered those kind of questions.

"In May and June, we did an incredible amount of manufacturing runs with no home runs and no slugging percentage," he said. "As the season went on, that dissipated a little, and we struggled. We've got to look at that.

"Right now, our team is slanted much more to situational batting, manufacturing runs, running the bases. And we have great pitching depth. But if there's a way to balance that out and make us better, I know Bill and Arte will look at it."

The top sluggers on the free agent market will be Alex Rodriguez (if he opts out of his Yankees deal), Andruw Jones, Torii Hunter, Mike Lowell and Aaron Rowand.

To sign A-Rod, Moreno would have to break the bank. The others would be less expensive but still major outlays.

But the sight of Willits hitting in the cleanup spot and popping up with the bases loaded might push Moreno and Stoneman in that direction more than in past years.

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