Second Guessing Angels-Royals ALDS Game 2: Nothing works

Ugh. I seriously don’t think I have it in me to get through this post, but I’m going to try. It’s hard to even know where to begin though. Once again, this was a game decided by the plays on the margins. Once again it felt like everything went right for the Royals and nothing went right for the Angels.

It starts with Kole Calhoun making a misplay in the second inning that puts a runner into scoring position. It would be the only run scored by KC during the first nine innings. If that doesn’t happen, there are no extra innings. The Angels win. But he did boot the ball. Hosmer did score. The Angels did lose.

As lousy as that is, they didn’t get much help along the way from, once again, their bats or, once again their manager.

Pulling Shoemaker after six innings
Let’s start off by defending Scioscia if only because there probably won’t be a lot of that after this. Matt Shoemaker was pitching a great game through six innings and pretty much cruising. Scioscia gave him the hook anyway. Some thought he should’ve stuck with Shoe for another inning since he was only at 82 pitches. The problem was he was at 82 pitches after not throwing in a week. Plus there is the times through the order penalty and Shoemaker was already on his third trip through. Wisely, he chose not press his luck. However, that did mean getting into his bullpen and using up Grilli, who would’ve been nice to have in extras. You can’t really manage that way though. That’s how Scioscia screwed the pooch in Game 1.

VERDICT:

Cowgill getting thrown out at third
This is where the shit show begins. Top of the eighth, C.J. Cron rips a leadoff double and Scioscia smartly sends in Collin Cowgill to pinch-run. So far so good.

Some folks actually wanted to have Chris Iannetta bunt here because apparently nobody learned their lesson with the Calhoun debacle the night before. As Kole showed us, having a guy who never bunts lay down a sacrifice is fraught with peril. Iannetta has just seven sacrifices in his career and none since 2011. A bunt would’ve improved the odds of scoring just one run from 34.8% to 47.8%, so there is logic to that strategy. However, you need the personnel to execute it. Besides, Iannetta is actually a pretty good hitter. Why not give him a chance? Especially with Calhoun and Trout due up next.

What Scioscia didn’t count on is that he’s got the world’s worst third base coach. Iannetta lofted a shallow flyball and Gary DiSarcina had Cowgill tag up. It didn’t work. And it wasn’t worth the risk.

Had Cowgill made it, the Halos are at the aforementioned 47.8% to score the one run. If he just played it safe and didn’t tag, the Angels would’ve been at 23.0%. That’s a 24.8% gain up for grabs, but it means you are also putting that 23% on the line. If you are going to tag up in that situation, you better have pretty good odds of being safe. Seeing how Dyson’s throw wasn’t even on the money and Cowgill was still out, he certainly didn’t have good odds.

Technically, that’s DiSar’s fault. Spiritually, it is Scioscia’s fault because it is his aggressive baserunning philosophy that was being adhered to there. Aggressive is fine, so long as you know where the line between aggressive and reckless is. We’ve seen time and time again this year that DiSar isn’t even aware that line exists.

VERDICT:

Street going two innings
In the tenth inning, Scioscia was faced with a major conflict. On one hand, they say if you are going to get beat, get beat with your best. But it is also smart to not do anything in the postseason that you don’t normally do. Scioscia put his money down on the former when he decided to let Huston Street pitch two innings in this game.

With his next best options being a shaky Salas, a struggling Morin or a Jepsen that threw a lot of pitches in an iffy outing the night before, going with Street seems reasonable enough. The caveat though is that Street hadn’t thrown two full innings in a game since 2011 and he recorded more than three outs in an appearance just four times since then with the most recent being in August of last year. In other words, he’s not at all prepared to do this, though he was pretty well rested.

It was certainly a gamble, but it was also against the weakest part of the Royals order, so the risk was mitigated a bit. When push comes to shove, a second inning of Street is probably about the same as one inning of one of the lesser pitchers or at least close enough so that it doesn’t really matter.

VERDICT:

Jepsen pitches the 11th inning
Using Street for a second inning still only kicked the can down the road on which reliever Scioscia would go to next. By his logic, Kevin Jepsen was next in the pecking order. That’s the call he made despite Jepsen having a sizable platoon split and two lefties due up in the inning. Jepsen is having a great year and the platoon gap shrunk a touch in 2014, but it is still there. In fact, three of the four homers he allowed were hit by lefties. Err, I guess we should make that four of the five.

The alternative would’ve been to go with Fernando Salas who has a big reverse platoon split this year. That didn’t work out for Scioscia last night though and after getting snakebit by it, there was no way he was going to try it again. That’s just dumb though. What happened the night before has nothing to do with what will happen the next night. Besides, the first two hitters up were Dyson and Cain, neither of which had much power. Hosmer, as we found out, was the real threat. Maybe it is just the Jepsen-hater in me, but Salas was the right call guy to call here, not Jepsen.

I suppose Mike Morin could have been another option, but he has struggled mightily against lefties this year and had looked horrible in the final week of the season, capping off a generally shaky final month.

VERDICT:

Josh Hamilton existing
And now we get into the real teeth of it. The vitriol online for Hamilton throughout this game was immeasurable. It was definitely over the top at times, but most of it was deserved.

Like a bad penny, Hamilton just seemed to keep turning up at the plate right when the Angels needed a big hit. That’s not a good thing considering the ill-conceived plan of using the ALDS as Hamilton’s rehab assignment.

Hamilton’s first at-bat in the third inning was a feeble strikeout. He looked so bad there that you wouldn’t have blamed Scioscia if he had just pulled him then and there. He didn’t.

In the fifth inning, Josh looked a little better in flying out to right.

His at-bat in the seventh actually might have been his best plate appearance of these two games. It still resulted in a routine ground out, but at least he looked like he might have a basic idea of what he was doing up there.

But then the tenth inning came. Hamilton was set to face a very tough left-handed reliever with a runner on first and one out. Yes, Hamilton has a reverse platoon split this year, but it is entirely feuled by a .464 BABIP against southpaws. It is not real. He couldn’t hit a lefty to save his life last year and has a noticeable platoon split on his career. Given that and how bad he’s looked, I don’t know what Sciosica was thinking in letting him hit for himself there.

He could’ve gone with Gordon Beckham as a pinch-hitter and then just used Efren Navarro in the field afterwards, if need be. Instead, he pinch-ran with Beckham. That speed upgrade over Freese was important, but Scioscia could just as easily have had Navarro, who runs about as well as Beckham, run for Freese so Beckham could bat.

Judging by how quickly Scioscia made his decision to stick with Hamilton, I don’t think it ever even crossed his mind. The result was Hamilton grounding into a double play to end the inning and draw all of the boos.

VERDICT: