Angels Dust

Ok, so I got lucky for once because the one freeway series game I could watch live was the only (remotely) close contest of the three. However, I never got really excited, not even after Scot Shields had just allowed the first run of the evening for the Dodgers. For a while, I wondered why I did not get nervous at all and now I know why: Because the Dodgers are the Angels. The reason I never got scared that the Angels might loose this game is the same I’m never particularly optimistic when the Angels trail late in a game: Their offense just does not scare anybody. Actually, the Angels’ offense is probably much better than the Dodgers’. I mean, 39-year-old Jeff Kent is their Vlad. Ok, they get on base a bit more often, but they have even less punch in their bats. There is nobody on that team I would want to have as the key hitter of my line-up. Don’t get me wrong, Kent is still pretty good, catcher Russel Martin swing a great bat and Furcal is a very useful lead-off man, but those are they players you complement you big guy(s) with, not build an offense around.
Now that I for once feel good about our offense, a few words about the biggest offensive black hole not on the DL right now, Shea Hillenbrand. I know I said that we should be patient with him, that his line-drive-rate has gone up and that his power will probably come back any time now. Since then, Hillenbrand has improved his home runs by infinity percent, so I put that in the pro column. But he also hit only one lousy double (+50%), and that was a bloop down the first base line. Not even his fly outs are travelling any further. In 131 at bats, he has not one fly out that was even close to the warning track. His four longest hit balls until today were a home run in Arlington (not exactly the most difficult place to hit one out), two doubles to the track in Angels Stadium and a single (?) to the track in Miller Park. This makes 4 (in words: four) balls travelling 300 feet or more in 131 at bats. Heck, even I (one career double) could probably hit one that far by chance once in a while. So even my patience is running dangerously low now. The best thing that can be said about Hillenbrand at the moment, as baseball analyst Rich Lederer points out, is that Shea is currently on pace for only 486 plate appearances. 600 PA, as you probably know, will have his option for 2008 become guaranteed.