28 July 2010

thoughts: Lackey, .500, Pineiro out

I've been able to read the paper daily to get my Angels news. You can imagine my surprise to see this:
Lackey said he didn't know what kind of reception to expect from Angels fans but added that he "hopes they respect the things I did here, for sure."
If Lackey had an accurate memory, he would know better than to expect anything less than the reception he got.

Sure, Angel fans were caught off-guard with his signing with the RedSox. I'm sure many fans, young and old struggled to accept that he would be with a team every Angels fan has learned to hate. I know I certainly did. But I think they, and I, would have been able to get over the shock and accept the fact that Boston offered a contract that was much better than what the Angels were offering. See Figgins, Chone.

Had he left with grace, with the consciousness that his move to the RedSox would hurt Angels fans, maybe he could have expected a better homecoming.

But he did not.

He left scorning the organization, the team, and the fans. Is he so arrogant that he believes he's above the consequences of those actions?

Weave commented
"People don’t understand what happens behind closed doors. All they see is him going to our so-called rival in the playoffs, but he’s a great guy and was a great mentor."
While I do appreciate that Lackey was the elder stateman in the rotation and helped along the young guys, I wouldn't call him the best mentor. In fact, it was his practice of throwing his teammates under a bus that disenchanted the FO and some fans. If he was able to bury his emotional outbursts, then maybe he would have known better than to give those choice quotes to the media that decidedly showed his displeasure with his contract negotiations. It all just looks so bush league to complain about the "business" side and invoke loyalty, and then when moving on to a hated team, to use the cliche "it's a business."

Lackey hasn't usually acted in ways that endeared him to Angels fans and it seems like he hasn't learned anything. After the game he gave another choice quote:
"That won't be forgotten, that's for sure," said a visibly irritated Lackey, who gave up seven hits and two runs in 71/3 innings in the same ballpark where he was the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series. "Nobody wants to get booed like that. The scoreboard talks the loudest."

Yeah John, that's a great challenge to Angel fans to hate you more.

Your body language might say that you care what Angel fans think, but it is the words go into the newspaper.

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Well that sucked.

I checked the score at work today to find that the Angels were actually making a game of it. With Pineiro scratched, the Angels bullpen were actually keeping them in the game. Until, well, Rodney gave up a grandslam to Marco Scutaro. Sigh...

The whole RedSox series was about as frustrating as all of the Angels losses. It's not that the Angels are finding new ways to lose, it's that they're finding more spectacular ways to do it.

After all those missed opportunties all throughout the year, it seems almost fitting that the Angels are sliding into irrelevance.

At this point, I'm not giving up. I'm changing my expectations. If the Angels can just play some good baseball - some Angels baseball - with the kind of effort and passion all Halo fans know they can, then hey, it'll be a win for me.

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Pineiro was scratched because of a oblique strain. What looked like a short term injury will be a mind-boggling 6-8 weeks.

So basically Season Over.

I meant Pineiro ;).

It's just another blow in a season where almost everything went wrong for the Angels.

So with the already thin pitching depth, who wants to guess who will be called up from Triple-AAA? Sure would be nice to have SOS....

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