If it wasn’t for bad luck, the 2009 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim wouldn’t have any luck at all. The bad news just kept coming on Friday to a team that has seen the tragic death of a pitching prospect gloomily obscure some deep problems on the field.
All Star slugger Vladimir Guerrero was placed on the 15 Day Disabled List on Friday with a torn pectoral muscle. While Vlad can hit just fine, he still fancies himself a Right Fielder and cannot throw without pain. The Angels seem to be humoring him here, as a retiring to Designated Hitter might be in order anyway given Guerrero’s 35 years. For the time being the Angels will rotate a combination of Maicer Izturis and Gary Matthews. Light-Hitting Izturis started at Designated Hitter on Friday, going 0 for 5, but reached base on a dropped strikeout and scored a run, as well as contributing a groundout RBI.
But neither Matthews nor Izturis nor any Angel replaces Vlad when it comes to batting. Catcher Mike Napoli would make a good candidate to try at Designated hitter, with a 3rd catcher replacing Guerrero on the roster. All of this discussion would be moot if the Angels had already brought in Brandon Wood at the beginning of the seaosn, but Wood was sent down to the minors to slug it out while Izturis and Erick Aybar slapped little singles around the infield.
Meanwhile, Dustin Moseley, who has graduated from 6th man to 3rd man in the Angels rotation, left Friday night’s game with obvious pain in his elbow. Moseley had offseason surgery to repair the ulnar nerve in his pitching arm and appeared to be unable to move his elbow while leaving the dugout after the 3rd inning.
With pitchers John Lackey and Ervin Santana a month away and Kelvim Escobar dealt a shoulder-tightening setback in his return and now penciled for no earlier than June, the Angels can ill afford to lose Moseley for an extended period of time. Without Him, their rotation is Joe Saunders, Jered Weaver, journeyman Shane Loux, 38-year old reliever Darren Oliver on a 40-pitch limit and an open slot.
Open for who? Down at AAA Salt Lake City:
The AA Arkansas Travellers have seen:
AAA Reliever Rafael Rodriguez made his major league debut on April 15, but if he is the best the Angels minor leagues have to offer, a trade or free agent signing is in order here.
And all the while, Brandon Wood languishes in AAA with a 1.065 slugging and nowhere to fit in the crowded Angels lineup. Of course, if the first ten games of this Angels season are any indication, Wood may be First on the infield depth chart before June.
0 recs | 24 comments
Is Wood injured?
I saw he wasnt playing for SLC tonight so I wondered if he was enroute, But I realized he did not play in the Wednesday Doubleheader or the Thursday game either
msuspartan - April 17, 2009
he was at a funeral Wednesday and Thursday
Rev Halofan - April 17, 2009
Where did you hear that Escobar
won’t be back till June?
humdinger - April 17, 2009
Do the math
Monday is April 20, a month is optimistic, ad a week and a half and it is June.
Rev Halofan - April 17, 2009
Well, there's my confusion.
A month is optimistic, which means it’s unlikely but still possible. But you said he’d be out until no earlier than June, stated as a certainty.
humdinger - April 18, 2009
Explain this...
Wait, he can hit just fine even with this injury? Or does this injury effect his hitting as well?
If he can still hit despite this injury then this is kind of BS. Stop playing right Vlad and spend a year DH’ing. We can see if RF is available for ya next year.
(yeah right…)
BryanHarvey'sMoustache - April 17, 2009
Sounds like from the MLB.com article that he is lying about the pain not being there when he bats.
BryanHarvey'sMoustache - April 17, 2009
agree
how can you have a pectoral tear in the right chest and not have it affect your swing. with all the twisting of the body? whats next for him if he can’t recover enough? surgery?
HALO_86 - April 18, 2009
bring up wood
move figgy to left, naps full time DH, mathis full time catch. send down bulger/rodriguez, and call up budde
AnaheimHalos61 - April 17, 2009
I thought "Bulging ERA" is out of options...
If so, he’s a goner.
Downing Rules - April 17, 2009
I have no problem with that...
…he’s been a disaster whenever he’s played with the big club
The Limey - April 18, 2009
oh yeah great idea...short staff our bullpen.
…and move a potential gold-glover to left.
im all for bringing up Wood but your suggestions are ridiculous. Most teams carry 11 pitchers. We usually carry 12. You suggest we have 3 catchers and 10 pitchers?
Smart, very very smart.
BryanHarvey'sMoustache - April 18, 2009
I hope that Ninja is going to his desk
and pulling out his emergency plan. Now here is what i say we do. I outlined a list of possible free agent pitchers in an earlier fanpost. For a quick sum up of all the FA pitchers
The noteworthy starters that are still free agents are: Odalis Perez, Pedro, Jon Lieber, Kenny Rogers, Chuck James, Traschel and Byrd.
Kenny Rogers id rather not have to deal with, and im skeptical on Pedro and James. Traschel doesnt offer much upside, more of a please god dont screw up. Chuck James has upside, but has pitched absolutely dreadfully lately. If we can convince Byrd to come back from retirement, then we got a solid starter. But what id really like to see is for us to sign Odalis Perez. No hes not a great starter, but he has been serviceable the last couple of seasons, and according to Fangraphs, he has been worth 1.5 wins for the last 4 or so years. Obviously getting him up to speed might be an issue, but with Oliver already on a strict pitch count, would it really take him that much longer?
If healthy, our rotation is Lackey/Santana/Saunders/Weaver/Moseley. Now Lackey will definitely be back in a few weeks. Santana should be back but might no longer be very affective and perhaps will require TJ surgery. With Moseley and our bullpen shaky, we could give some starts to Odalis, then when our starters are healthy, shift Odalis and Loux into the bullpen/AAA as spot starters and we should be set.
anaheim angels - April 17, 2009
Completely agree with Perez
I think people tend to overlook him because too many people here remember him as the fat lefty who wasn’t that good for the Dodgers a few years back. Serviceable strikeout rate with an excellent K:BB ratio should limit the damage even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, which is all we’re looking for anyway. The one thing that I’ll say is that the dude is 32 and has pitched his whole career in the NL, so we should except a bit of regression.
Quite frankly, I don’t know why we haven’t really made a move yet – we can’t expect to win with a rotation of Saunders – Weaver – Loux – Oliver – Green, or anything of the sort.
442 - April 17, 2009
Agree completely
Oliver should not be starting and Green is not yet ready. I advocated all of ST and earlier that we needed to pick up a pitcher like looper (1 yr/ 4.75 M from the Brewers). There are still one or two FAs that could help as starters, but we really could have swooped in and gotten a quality pitcher on the real cheap if we had taken advantage of the market
anaheim angels - April 17, 2009
GREEN?
Nick Green is GONE. He was claimed off waivers by Milwaukee in February.
Rev Halofan - April 17, 2009
442 is envious.
Downing Rules - April 17, 2009
On the bright side
at least well see more Willits
anaheim angels - April 17, 2009
How is that a bright side
HaloDutch - April 18, 2009
sarcastic
its really hard to convey it on the internet though
anaheim angels - April 18, 2009
It seemed to me that he was not feeling too good when he was hitting too.
I got to see the Seattle series on TV and he looked like he was in pain. I bet that is the reality, not just that he cant play the field. I mean really, a torn pec . Ouch. That has gotta hurt when swinging. At the very least he will favor it, and we all know where that leads.
But hey, the bright side is when he comes back healthy, he’s really gonna rake, it is a contract year for him. He may pull a 2004, you never know
Big Bad, 'Vlad'! - April 18, 2009
There goes his chance to break Gehrig's record.
PhiSlamma - April 18, 2009
Gehrig's record
was he still on that streak when he retired?
HALO_86 - April 18, 2009
Yeah.
Just watched Pride of the Yankees on Hulu (I recommend it!) and although it is a very Hollywood version of the story, I read more about it after, and yes, he was.
Though isn’t Cal’s record the more relevant one?
AlanFalcon - April 18, 2009
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