Guerrero Is Forced to Adjust

Throttled to the tune of a .344 average, three home runs and eight runs batted in through eight games, opposing pitchers seemed to wise up to Angel right fielder Vladimir Guerrero last week.

In three games against Seattle and Oakland on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Guerrero got a heavy dose of inside fastballs, which prevented him from extending his arms and driving the ball the way he did the first week of the season.

The result: a single and a double in 12 at-bats and a bunch of balls hit off the handle that were either grounded to the left side or hit foul.

“I’ve always been pitched that way, so I’m used to it,” Guerrero said through an interpreter. “It doesn’t bother me a bit. That’s the nature of the game. I have long arms.... I have to get the bat out there a little quicker, just throw the barrel out.”

As pitchers make adjustments to Guerrero, who spent his first seven years with the National League’s Montreal Expos, Guerrero must compensate, either backing off the plate a bit or using an inside-out-stroke and driving the ball to right field.

But if Guerrero lays off the inside pitch that is clearly off the plate, it will force pitchers to be more precise on the inner half, and that, Manager Mike Scioscia said, will lead to mistake pitches such as the full-count Mark Mulder fastball that Guerrero lined over the center-field wall for a two-run home run in the third inning Saturday night.

Mulder came inside with all four pitches in his first at-bat against Guerrero, who flied to center in the first, and he backed Guerrero off the plate several times in the third inning before yielding Guerrero’s fourth homer of the season.

“There’s a fine line between getting the ball inside to that perfect spot and leaving it out over the plate and getting tattooed,” Scioscia said. “You try to neutralize most power hitters by not letting them get their arms extended, and particularly, when you cross leagues, teams want to see how you handle the ball inside.”

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Angel owner Arte Moreno has referred to this winter’s $146-million free-agent splurge on Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, Kelvim Escobar and Jose Guillen as a “capital investment,” signings he hoped would affect the team’s future as well as the present.

If the opinion of one major league veteran is any indication, Moreno’s moves have changed how the Angels are perceived around baseball.

“No question, in talking to some other players, this is going to be a place guys want to come to,” Oakland first baseman Eric Karros said.”Not just because it’s Southern California, but because of the facility and the owner’s commitment to winning. He’s really laid a foundation.”

Is there that big of a difference between the Disney-owned Angels and Moreno’s Angels?

“Put it this way: There don’t seem to be a lot of restrictions now,” Karros said. “The parameters have widened. His thing is to win, and I don’t know if there are ulterior motives. As a player, that’s great.”