Second Guessing Angels-Royals ALDS Game 3: It’s all over

It’s all over, folks. Instead of the Angels fighting back to extend the series, the Royals stepped on their throats and put them out of their misery.

To be fair, the Angels did fight back for like half an inning. Mike Trout homered to finally give the Angels a lead, but it didn’t last. C.J. Wilson took the mound and shortly thereafter vacated the mound in shame after surrendering a bases loaded double to Alex Gordon. After that, it was all over but for the crying.

Sure, the Halos had some opportunities to get back in the game, but they couldn’t capitalize and with every chance the Angels blew, KC just came back and added to the lead more.

With so much going wrong, there wasn’t much to second guess in terms of in-game tactics, which is a nice relief, but the game was impacted by two larger scale decisions that Scioscia made before the series.

Letting C.J. Wilson start
Going into this series, the Shields vs. Wilson matchup was a pretty obvious issue. It was because of that matchup that everyone picked the Angels to win in four, not three. This result was not at all unexpected.

The problem was that Scioscia set up the result. Wilson had been a mess all season. Even in good starts, he often dealt with short stretches where the wheels very nearly came off. It wasn’t until the final month of the season that he looked as if he might be a usable starter. Certainly not good, but usable. However, he had that disastrous outing in his next to last start just to serve as a reminder that implosion is always looming.

Scioscia knew that, too. That’s a big part of the reason he chose to carry 12 pitchers (which is another bad decision that I just don’t have the energy to delve into). So why start Wilson at all?

The answer is simple and sad: he didn’t really have any other options. Hector Santiago had a better overall season, but he had two nightmare starts in September. At least with Wilson there was an off chance that he’d have his act together and pitch a gem. I’m sure someone will suggest Wade LeBlanc as well, but putting faith in a journeyman who spent most of the season in Triple-A would be pure insanity.

If there was one real alternative worth considering, it was Cory Rasmus. He pitched better than both Wilson and Santiago down the stretch. He even looked outstanding in a few of his short starts. But that’s the problem, those short starts. Even in the playoffs when you know you’ll hook the starter early, having a guy that can go four innings at most is a big problem.

But that’s kind of Scioscia’s fault as well. He passed up a few opportunities to push Rasmus last month and extend his pitch count to where he could throw 80 or so pitches. Maybe Rasmus would’ve pitched poorly at that length, but there was only one way to find out. Scioscia didn’t even bother. As a result, he painted himself into a corner with C.J. Wilson.

VERDICT:

Letting Josh Hamilton play… again
After two awful games for Josh, Scioscia triple-downed on him and gave him another start. The baseball gods punished Scioscia for his stubbornness as Hamilton had four plate appearances where he could’ve gotten the Angels back into the game and in each instance, Hamilton failed miserably. His at-bats were better, but still not good. There were even a few times where he appeared to put a good swing on a pitch, but had nothing more than a routine grounder or flyball to show for it. Be it his injury or his rustiness or his general mental approach, Hamilton reaffirmed that he had no business playing in this ALDS.

But Scioscia should’ve known that after two games. He probably did know it, but didn’t want to admit it. He took a big gamble on having Hamilton on the roster and in the lineup, a gamble that didn’t payoff at all. Instead of cutting his losses though, Scioscia just kept raising so he wouldn’t have to admit he was wrong. He was wrong though. And it is OK to be wrong sometimes but you have to be willing to admit it and learn from those mistakes, not compounding them like Scioscia did.

VERDICT:

Well, that wraps up the season. I don’t want to go out on a total bummer note, so I’ll simply say that as much as this series sucked, the season as a whole was a good one. A lot of good things happened and the Angels finally brought some joy back into their lives. Not enough, but some and that’s a lot better that the last few years have been.

Thanks for following the blog this season, everyone. I might take a little bit of a rest next week, but I’ll still provide plenty of content this offseason.