Angels Are Hoping the Bear Stays Asleep

Joe Maddon distilled all the statistics and scouting reports on the New York Yankees into seven words.

“If they pitch well, they beat you,” said Maddon, the Angel bench coach.

As the Yankees arrive in Anaheim tonight, the Bronx Bombers are living up to their legendary nickname. They hit six home runs in an 8-4 victory over the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, with none from Alex Rodriguez or Gary Sheffield but two each from the resurgent Jason Giambi and Tino Martinez.

This month, they scored 25 runs in a two-game series against the Baltimore Orioles, 28 in four games against the Cleveland Indians and 20 in three games against the Rangers.

The Yankees have scored the most runs of any team in the major leagues, but they trail the Boston Red Sox by half a game in the American League East. If the regular season ended today, the Yankees would face the Minnesota Twins in a one-game playoff for the AL wild-card spot.

The dilemma, with the obligatory reference to the Yankee record payroll included: This is the pitching you get for $200 million?

“I’m sure they’d like to have more stability on their pitching staff,” Maddon said. “Offensively, they’re still off the charts.”

The Twins opened the season with a $56-million payroll. The Yankees opened with a $65-million rotation, with Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright.

Brown has been on the disabled list twice, Wright has been there since April and Pavano is there too. The Yankees have used 12 starters this season, the most of any major league club. The roll call includes Aaron Small, whose start on Wednesday was his first in the majors in nine years, and San Diego Padre castoffs Darrell May (now back in the minors) and Tim Redding.

The Yankees plan to start Johnson tonight, Al Leiter on Friday and Brown on Saturday. No major league team has used three consecutive starters 39 or older since the 1933 St. Louis Cardinals presented Burleigh Grimes, Dazzy Vance and Jesse Haines.

The results have been predictable. The Yankee starters have a 4.92 earned-run average, worse than any team in the league save the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The opponents’ batting average of .293 is the highest in the league.

“Their biggest problem has probably been all the starters they’ve had to use,” Angel hitting coach Mickey Hatcher said. “But the bottom line is, look where they’re at.”

The Angels are in first place in the AL West, with a record bettered only by the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals. The Angel starters have a 3.87 ERA, second-best in the league, and a habit of working into the seventh inning.

“That I know because that’s my inning,” setup man Brendan Donnelly said with a smile, “and I haven’t been pitching very much.”

That’s not to say the Yankees can’t win in October this way, if they get there. In the seven-game 2002 World Series victory over the San Francisco Giants, no Angel starter completed the sixth inning.

But, even if the Yankees can identify and preserve five starters, the track record for two stars appears far more promising than the current record. Brown’s ERA: 3.20 before this season, 5.91 this season. Johnson’s ERA: 3.07 before this season, 4.23 this season.

“Lots of people are getting on Randy Johnson, but he’s got 10 wins. That’s pretty good,” Angel catcher Josh Paul said. “Does everybody expect him to be 20-2 every year?”

In New York, yes. And, at least on paper, the Yankees’ current starters appear more menacing as a 2001 rotation than a 2005 one.

“You may think that, but you don’t know,” Maddon said.

“At any moment, guys could jump up and be like they were three or four years ago, and you always think it’s going to happen against you.

“They could come in here and all be tossing zeroes.”

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Tale of the tape

A comparison of the Angels and the Yankees heading into this weekend’s series, with league rank:

*--* Angels Yankees 269 (8th) Batting Avg. .276 (3rd) 438 (7th) Runs 519 (1st) 878 (6th) Hits 891 (t-3rd) 80 (11th) Home Runs 130 (2nd) 82 (3rd) Stolen Bases 52 (7th) 589 (2nd) W-L Pct. .548 (t-4th) 3.70 (3rd) Earned-Run Avg. 4.67 (10th) 682 (1st) Strikeouts 571 (6th) 29 (2nd) Saves 24 (t-5th)

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FOR STARTERS

How the probable starting pitchers for the first three games this weekend compare in innings per start and quality starts (at least six innings pitched, no more than three earned runs):

YANKEES

*--* Pitcher GS IPS QS ERA Randy Johnson 20 6.7 10 4.23 Al Leiter 17 4.9 4 6.25 Kevin Brown 12 5.8 4 5.91 ANGELS Bartolo Colon 19 6.8 12 3.64 John Lackey 19 6.2 9 3.97 Ervin Santana 9 5.3 4 5.66

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