Idiots Write About Sports

Ah, that’s more like it. I didn’t have any particular dog in the New York-Metropolitan Los Angeles Area series — other than a belief that the Yankees have probably won enough in recent years for my tastes — so it’s nice to see an outcome that more or less matches what I predicted, even if it took the Angels one game longer to dispense with an inferior Yankee team than I had expected.

The reason why it took Anaheim a full slate of games? A theory I’ve just invented called Good Angels/Bad Angels that posits that the 2005 edition of the team is actually two different squadrons. The Good Angels don’t have much in the way of a consistent offense (other than Vladimir Guerrero, assuming Anaheim’s opponents are dumb enough to pitch to him). But the starting pitching is outstanding, holding the other team’s bats at bay, and the bullpen is competent enough to finish the job. And the Bad Angels? Well, the starting pitching is still good, but in this version, the bullpen is about as dependable as your ne’er-do-well brother-in-law after his third whiskey sour. Usually, this version rears its ugly head after Mike Scioscia goes to the well one too many times with the same corps of relievers — like using Scott Shields in four consecutive playoff games just to use a crazy example that would never, ever happen. By about the third or fourth appearance in as many days, the ol’ soupbone ain’t feeling as sharp as it normally should and leads tend to fritter away. Sadly, for the purposes of my predictive accuracy, the Bad Angels showed up for Game Four. (6-4-2 details all of this, more succinctly and less stupidly than I just did, in some post-game garment rending.)

So, which Angels team shows up at Comiskey II to face the White Sox in tonight’s ALCS opener? A sleepy one, I’m guessing, as Anaheim plays its third game in as many days and in as many time zones. Also, an ailing one, as Bartolo Colon has been dropped from the playoff roster.

If I can get Oakland-centric for just a moment, the Angels find themselves in the same spot today that the A’s would have been in back in 2003 had they lucked out and beaten the Red Sox in Game Five of the divisional series. If you recall, that was the postseason where Tim Hudson had to leave Game Four with some sort of mysterious muscle injury (which may or may not have been aggrivated in a bar scuffle) and where Mark Mulder was nursing a fractured hip. (Mulder insists he could have pitched had the A’s gone deeper in the playoffs, but you wonder how effective he would have been, having not thrown a competitve pitch since August.) Now let’s assume the A’s beat the Sox and go on to face the New York Yankees in the 2003 ALCS. With Zito having started Game Five on short rest and Ted Lilly having pitched in relief in that game (after starting Game Three), your Oakland starters for the first two games in the Bronx would have been some combination of Steve Sparks, John Halama, the rookie version of Rich Harden or Mark Mulder and a team of orthopedists. Or, as they say in baseball circles, “down 0-2 headed back to Oakland.”

The Angels aren’t in such dire straits. Paul Byrd gets the start tonight, and he’s had a fine year, his bad performance in Game Three of the ALDS nothwithstanding. It’s in Game Two where things start to get a little dicey. Jarrod Washburn is penciled in as the starter — but what if his strep throat flares up again, making him a last-minute scratch? Who gets the start then? John Lackey on short rest? Ervin Santana on even shorter rest? Kelvim Escobar and a cast of thousands?

If the Angels were healthy, they’d be a stone-cold lock over Chicago. But the depleted pitching staff coupled with the insane travel schedule tilts things in favor of the Sox — I’ll say Chicago in six.

As for the NL side of the ledger, you’ll note I correctly predicted the Cardinals’ sweep. And since Houston and Atlanta played 18 innings worth of baseball on Sunday, I’m going to pretend that my Astros-in-five prediction was more or less accurate. I said St. Louis would take out Houston in seven back then, and I see no need to alter that prediction now, other than the fact that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

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