Matt Watson tipped me off to Curt Schilling’s blog today, and frankly, I’m pretty peeved at what I’m reading. Schilling, who shutdown the Angels over seven scoreless innings in Game 3 Sunday, blogged that the Angels didn’t even take batting practice before what wound up being their last game of the season.
I guarantee someone will make a big deal out of this and it’s not meant to be. It’s something that I would guess only affected me but that’s why I mention it. I was stunned yesterday as I walked to the pen to warm up, that the Angels took no BP outside. I am walking to the pen and they were doing the on your own routine that teams will often do in Spring Training for oddly timed games or during the regular season when you get an early day game after a late night. Now I would bet they didn’t think twice about it, they were ready for the game and all that, but as I am walking to the pen I couldn’t help but think that as high as I was adrenaline wise, with the series on the line, and my nerves on edge, there was no way they could be anywhere near as ready for this game as I was when it started. Sounds stupid I guess, but I know it got me fired up and excited about being able to grab a hold of this game and win it.
The entire entry by Schilling is actually well worth your time. He touches on Beckett’s game 1 performance and calls it the best game he’s seen pitched at any level (also says it gave him more confidence). He talks about Papi and Manny being locked in. Really, it’s worth a read.
So, back to BP, what about that? I know it was a 12pm start time, and that’s pretty early for a baseball game. The earliest they usually play is 12:35ish Saturdays on FOX, or around 1pm on day games, usually on Sundays. And from my experience working in MLB, teams don’t take BP when they have Sunday day games. Just the way it is. So what about that? I find the notion that a team which has only scored in one out of 18 innings in the playoffs not taking hitting practice hard to conceive. That is disheartening news, if that was the case. I’d love to ask Scioscia and Mickey Hatcher about this before killing them here on the site. Obscure Sports Quarterly has some thoughts on UCLA and the Angels this weekend (we’re fairly crushed), and I have more in both vains to come. But for now, this is quite disturbing news. Can you say A-Rod anyone? It’s not like he doesn’t already fit in perfectly with Anaheim’s postseason offensive gameplan anyways, right?
