Angels’ Offense Playing Its Part

It was on the eve of the division series between the Angels and Yankees that New York Manager Joe Torre said the true profile of his 2002 team can be found on the mound and not in the batter’s box.

The Yankees may have occasionally awakened echoes of the Bronx Bombers while leading the American League in runs and finishing second in home runs, but Torre said, “I’d like to think the profile of this team is pitching.”

He would add, “This is the best staff I’ve ever had.”

No one will dispute the quantity and quality of a staff that can afford to put Jeff Weaver and Orlando Hernandez in the bullpen and not include Sterling Hitchcock on the division series roster, but at this point of a series that is tied, 1-1, and which they probably should lead, 2-0, Angel hitters are pretty much disfiguring that Yankee profile.

Then again, to the Angels, it’s not only hitting.

It’s what bench coach Joe Maddon calls “playing offense,” and it goes back to spring training when Maddon and hitting coach Mickey Hatcher stressed it, charted it and watched it materialize as even the big hitters such as Garret Anderson, Troy Glaus and Tim Salmon made the effort to embrace it, which left colleagues with no choice but to join them.

“Now,” said Darin Erstad, referring to the umbrella of situational hitting, working the count, advancing runners, laying down bunts, going from first to third whenever possible and stealing bases, “it’s like we don’t even think about it. It feeds on itself. Everybody in the lineup does it.”

In the House of Horrors that can be Yankee Stadium, in games started by Roger Clemens, a six-time Cy Young Award winner, and Andy Pettitte, third in postseason wins and 9-1 in his previous 11 starts, everybody was doing it, indeed.

The Angels collected 29 hits, batting an outrageous .372.

They scored 13 runs, stole three bases, drew four walks, forced Clemens and Pettitte to throw 179 pitches in 8 2/3 innings and also demonstrated situational hitting doesn’t have to be restricted to hitting behind the runner.

The Angels slugged six home runs, three by Glaus.

“We had a meeting with the hitters before the first game there,” Hatcher said, “and I told them, ‘You’ve got to stay aggressive, you’ve got to continue to put your game on the field.’ I told them the Yankees were starting with Clemens for one reason and that was to try and intimidate us but that we’ve got to do the intimidating like we have all year. They went out and did a great job of it.”

Put another way by Manager Mike Scioscia: “We have to bring our style of play whether it’s spring training or a World Series game. It was a big step to take our game into an atmosphere as great as New York.”

It is said in baseball that momentum is only as good as the next day’s pitcher. If the Angels are going to sustain their game amid the pressure of the playoffs they will have to overcome another challenge tonight in Mike Mussina, another key piece of the Yankee profile.

At this point, however, the Angels have carried the lessons of spring across 164 games, winning 100. They can’t be expected to get 17 hits in every one, as they did in Game 2 Wednesday night, but they did lead the league in hits and team batting, they did finish third in stolen bases and fourth in on-base percentage and they did outscore opponents by 207 runs despite finishing 10th in home runs. They also struck out less than any major league team, possibly the best measure of their improved discipline.

In the two New York games, the Angels had baserunners in 14 of the 18 innings and scored in nine.

“We don’t always get it done,” said Maddon, referring to the situational demands that accompany most at-bats, “but the intent has been there. The awareness has been fantastic.”

Said Hatcher: “What we told them in the spring is that a lot of them may think they’re being successful if they hit .300, but that’s not being a winner. There are three stats that are important: runs, runs batted in and on-base percentage. I said to guys like Glaus and Salmon, ‘You guys may not feel you have an approach [that coincides with the concept we’re discussing] but we’re going to make an approach. We’re going to take these [spring] games seriously. They may not mean anything, but mentally they do when the season starts.’ ”

The one season is over and it’s two games into the new season and even shortstop Derek Jeter admitted the Yankees are getting a little edgy with the tenacity and discipline of Angel hitters, who struck out about 350 times less than the Yankees. “You have to ask the pitchers how they feel, but on defense it’s pretty frustrating because even when our pitchers have made some quality pitches the first two games, they don’t swing at them or they foul them off,” Jeter said. “And, you know, that’s what you need to do at this time of the year, put the ball in play, and that’s definitely what they’ve been doing.”

Trying to gauge whether 29 hits worth translates totally or in part to good Angel at-bats or poor Yankee pitching is difficult.

Torre suggested it was a combination of the two, saying that neither Clemens nor Pettitte had bad stuff but couldn’t locate it consistently and couldn’t put hitters away when they had the count in their favor. Has he seen anything from the Angel offense he didn’t expect?

“Unfortunately no,” he said with a smile. “What’s going on right now is they’re playing the way they expect to play, the way Mike Scioscia expects them to play. You always look for something when you’re getting scouting reports on another team that somebody isn’t at the top of their game, but right now [some Angel] may have a bad at-bat, but they come right back.

“Look at Garret Anderson. He had a couple--I don’t want to say weak--at-bats [in Wednesday night’s game], but bad at-bats for him, then bang, home run [to tie the score in the eighth inning]. They’re all playing well right now, they all know what they have to do, and that’s a credit to Mike Scioscia.”

It also has to be called a credit to the concept of “playing offense” and the way the Angels have adapted to it.

“We knew we couldn’t rely on home runs and expect to win,” Erstad said. “We have to scratch and crawl.

“People say we’re playing over our head, but look at the guys who played regularly in the past and there’s nobody who had a career year, who did or is doing anything he hasn’t done before. We’re playing the way we’re capable of playing.”

The Angels, by now, would seem to have established the accuracy of that profile.