Club Knows It Must Improve Markedly to Contend in 2002

It has been a dream season for the Seattle Mariners, one that will be difficult, maybe impossible, to duplicate in 2002, but that shouldn’t give the Angels any more hope. The American League West may be the strongest division in baseball, and if the Angels don’t improve significantly in 2002, they’ll be far out of the playoff picture again.

“This division is stacked, and you know it’s going to improve,” Angel center fielder Darin Erstad said. “Seattle has a veteran team, great starting pitching, a great bullpen, great defense, and they play the game the right way. Oakland isn’t going anywhere. Texas will get better ....

“If you put our pitching this year together with last year’s hitting, we could win 100 games and play with [the Mariners and A’s] the whole season. But things have to fall in place, obviously.”

The Angels will need a healthy and productive Mo Vaughn next season. They’ll need Erstad, Tim Salmon and Troy Glaus to rebound strongly from subpar seasons and Garret Anderson to repeat this season. They’ll need another solid performance from the bullpen and closer Troy Percival. They’ll need to get better offensively and defensively at the middle infield positions.

And though young starters Jarrod Washburn, Ramon Ortiz and Scott Schoeneweis have shown promise, the Angels need to add one or two front-of-the-rotation pitchers, which would require the kind of financial investment the Walt Disney Co. has been reluctant to make in recent years. Dodger right-hander Chan Ho Park is atop a very undistinguished list of potential free-agent pitchers this winter.

“Seattle is going to be good for a long time, and Oakland is a very good team,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said.

“The challenge for us is to get to that level, to keep moving forward, because the line has been drawn for what it will take for us to win the division.”

TODAY

Safeco Field, Seattle, 3:30 p.m.

Radio--KLAC (570), XPRS (1090).

Update--The Mariners have not given up more than one run in their last six games, outscoring opponents, 36-3, and holding opposing batters to a .122 average (22 for 180) with two extra-base hits, a double and a home run. Seattle leads the season series against the Angels, 13-3. “They’ve flat-out taken it to us,” Scioscia said. “When you win [13 of 16] from a club, that’s not a fluke.”