Vaughn Knows What a Waste It Has Been

Mo Vaughn dragged a garbage can over to his locker after Sunday night’s 12-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers, and the Angel first baseman began purging.

First went a few baseball caps, a batting glove or two and a few sweat bands. Vaughn gave several pairs of pants to equipment manager Ken Higdon, who took them away. If Vaughn could have, he would have tossed the entire 1999 Angel season into the bin.

“When I clean things, it’s like snapping for me,” Vaughn said. “I get it all out.”

Said teammate Jim Edmonds: “You ought to see how dirty his house is when things are going good.”

Things are not going good for Vaughn. He went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts Sunday, his average falling to .265 and his strikeout total to 95. Vaughn has 21 home runs and 72 runs batted in, decent numbers for some, but not for a former American League most valuable player who averaged 40 homers and 120 RBIs the past four years.

“When this is all over, I definitely will take the blame for this year’s lack of offense,” Vaughn said. “I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but that’s just how I am. I don’t have any excuses. I’m not going to make any.

“It’s almost like I can’t wait for spring training to start again. I love to play this game, but I will definitely take the responsibility for this season, and I will definitely do something about this in 2000.”

There is little Vaughn can do about 1999, and there was almost nothing he could do about Sunday night.

They changed the hitting background in Edison Field last week, removing the rotted-out, bright-green artificial turf above the center-field wall and slapping a few coats of dark green paint on the surface.

The hitting foreground remained the same for the Angels, about as bleak as it has been all summer.

Another feeble offensive performance, combined with some shoddy pitching and a dash of dreadful defense, added up to an unsightly loss to the Tigers before a crowd of 24,465.

The Angels rank fourth in the league in earned-run average and fourth in defense, so this game was something of an aberration along those lines.

But they’ve had an absentee offense all season, ranking last in the league in runs and on-base percentage, and they seem incapable of maintaining any kind of offensive momentum.

The Angels had 14 hits, including three home runs, in a 9-2 win at Chicago on Thursday and opened the Tiger series with a 5-1 win Friday night.

Then in consecutive games against the worst team in baseball, the Angels managed to score in one of 18 innings, and they had only 12 hits. If not for Troy Glaus’ two-run homer, Todd Greene’s double and Ben Molina’s RBI single in the seventh inning Sunday, the Angels would have been shut out twice.

“Good teams are able to sustain the offense,” Vaughn said. “Inconsistent teams don’t.”

Juan Encarnacion had three hits, including a three-run homer in the first off Angel starter Steve Sparks (5-10), and a career-high five RBIs, and Dean Palmer had three hits and three RBIs.