As Always With Angels, Emphasis Is on Future

The Arizona Diamondbacks, the nouveau riche, recent arrivals to major league baseball’s cushy upper dimension, have arrived at Edison Field perky, spunky, full of enthusiasm for the second half of the season.

The fourth-year Diamondbacks are in first place in the National League West. They are playing for a division title at best and would accept a wild card into the playoffs as an unsatisfactory consolation prize. They have two of the best, smartest, hardest-throwing pitchers in the league. They have a Triple Crown threat.

“We have,” says one of those pitchers, Curt Schilling, “ownership which will do what it takes to win.”

Fun is what Diamondback newcomer Mark Grace says his team expects to have the rest of the season. It is fun to play baseball every day when the games matter now, when what happens with every at-bat makes a difference.

All the talk in the Diamondback clubhouse before Thursday night’s game was about baseball. It was about the length of the suspension given to Marquis Grissom of the Dodgers. It was about whether the Chicago Cubs were going to hang on in the National League Central.

Baseball was all that mattered. That’s how it is when you are playing for something immediate.

In the Angel clubhouse, there was some discussion of college football, a little small talk about who did what over the all-star break. In a quiet corner, Tim Salmon, who is still unable to play because of a bad shoulder, was speaking to an Arizona reporter about whether he might want to become a Diamondback.

Salmon gently pointed out that he had signed a contract extension at the beginning of the season so it was unlikely he would soon be a Diamondback. Salmon tried to sound enthusiastic about his happiness in Anaheim. “We have a core of good, young players and the future is going to be bright,” he said.

When will this “bright future” stuff get tiresome, though?

The Angels have no chance of gaining 21 games on the Seattle Mariners, so the American League West title is not even a dream. Salmon spoke bravely of the Angels playing for the wild card. They’d have to pass four other teams and gain about nine games to lead the wild-card race. Not gonna happen. Four teams, teams such as the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, aren’t all going to collapse. The Angels aren’t going to play other-worldly baseball.

Salmon dug in. He said he was capable of carrying the Angels “for a month or two when I get hot.”

His average is .206. His swing was gone before he went on the disabled list. Nearly every day someone was asking Salmon if he was seeing the ball OK, was it possible he needed an eye examination? That’s how bad it is, serious questions about his eyesight. So as unlikely as the wild card seems, even more improbable right now is the vision of Salmon carrying the Angels for a day, much less a month.

Back in the Arizona clubhouse you looked around. Luis Gonzalez, who before Thursday night’s game was fourth in the National League in batting average (.355), second in home runs (35) and first in runs batted in (86), was gently twirling a bat and receiving congratulations for winning the All-Star game home run derby. “It was a lot of fun,” he said. “This whole season has been a lot of fun.”

In the Angel clubhouse there is less fun and more niggling tension about who might be traded before July 31. Maybe Troy Percival, the spectacular closer? Or Benji Gil, the solid-hitting infielder? Maybe Garret Anderson, the steadiest bat in the lineup this season? Whispers even about the availability of Darin Erstad. For what? More youth, more prospects, more tomorrows to look forward to and more todays to write off?

Since they were invented, the Diamondbacks have acted as if they are a big-market team. Managing general partner Jerry Colangelo spends money willingly. Arizona went to the playoffs in 1999. It’s hard to imagine, with Randy Johnson and Schilling as the 1-2 pitchers, that the Diamondbacks can stumble long enough or badly enough to miss the playoffs this year.

The Angels say, defiantly, that they are not a big-market team and therefore can’t spend like one.

But why not?

The Angels have a metro drawing area of more than 10 million people. Only the New York teams and the Dodgers draw from a bigger statistical pool.

The city of Anaheim has nearly as many people as Cincinnati. Santa Ana is bigger than Pittsburgh and St. Louis. One of the terms coming from the newest census is 100,000-plus population “Boom-burbs.” These are cities across the country which were barely towns three or four decades ago. Edison Field is surrounded by four of the fastest-growing “Boom-burbs” in the country--Irvine, Costa Mesa, Fullerton and Orange.

But here it is, another wasted season. Another July of waiting to see what Angels are hot on the open market and soon another off-season of watching the Arizonas get better and of the Angels looking toward the future.

The Angels played a fine game Thursday night. They beat the Diamondbacks, 4-1. The hitting was timely. The pitching by starter Scott Schoeneweis was superb. Percival was overpowering--three pitches, 98 mph, 99 mph, 99 mph. A strikeout. A save. It was the Angels’ fifth consecutive victory.

But the future is so far away.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com