Time Off Does Trick for Davis

If this were a different team or a different time, Chili Davis might have been icing his aching back after Monday night’s game against Detroit. Instead, he was relaxing comfortably in front of his locker, enjoying the Angels’ victory and his own two-hit performance.

Davis was suffering from back spasms and decided to take a couple of days off last week. He probably could have played on Wednesday, but opted for a more cautious tact and rested five days before returning Friday night.

“If this were late September instead of late April, I would have been out there,” Davis said. “And if we didn’t have [Mike] Aldrete and [Tim] Wallach to step in [at designated hitter], it wouldn’t have been this easy to take the extra time.”

Since returning to the lineup, Davis is four for 11. Sunday, he drove in the game-tying run in the eighth inning of the Angels’ 6-5 victory. And Monday night he hit a two-run homer in the first inning as the Angels made it six victories in a row, beating the Tigers, 6-5, again.

Davis homered in the first two games of the season, but he didn’t hit another one out again until April 12 when he connected against Detroit’s Felipe Lira. Monday night, he got the second hit of his career off Lira, another home run, getting all of a first-pitch slider.

Davis followed Tim Salmon’s single with a towering drive that hooked around the right-field foul pole and when he trotted home it was the 600th time he had crossed the plate as an American Leaguer. It was his 456th run as an Angel, moving him into fifth place on the all-time Angel list, two behind Wally Joyner. Davis also had a single to left off Lira in the fifth inning.

“I think taking the extra couple of days really helped,” he said. “I could have been back sooner, but it was mutually agreed upon that we’d take a conservative approach and I feel great now.”

“Taking the time off not only helped Chili, it helped the other guys, giving them a chance to play,” Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “It also allowed Chili to get back to 100%, instead of coming back a day or two earlier when it was just so-so.

“And he’s come out of it swinging the bat pretty well.”

Despite the back problems, Davis has hit safely in 11 of 14 games this season and the hitting streak he extended to nine games Monday night ties Garret Anderson for the longest by an Angel this season. Still, Davis describes his performance so far this season as “not so great, but getting better.”

“Right now, I’m at that stage where I’m still feeling my way around up there, trying to find a rhythm and just trying to make sure I hit the mistakes hard,” Davis said. “I think the toughest part is maintaining a good game plan up there.

“I’m still waiting for that feeling when you’re able to lock in on zones. That’s when you go up there and get three or four quality at-bats every night. That’s sort of where we are as a team right now.

“You hope for one of two things when the season starts, that your offense comes out red hot or you come up with key hits. Right now, we’re not swinging the bat extremely well, but we’re getting the key hits and we’ll take it.”