Lackey Shows That He More Than Fits the Bill

I was watching ESPN’s “Cold Pizza” on Wednesday morning.

My other options were staying in bed with the wife or going golfing with the Grocery Store Bagger.

Well, I figured I deserved a break, so I turned on “Cold Pizza,” which usually has nothing to offer, which was just what I needed to get me ready to interview Garret Anderson later.

“Cold Pizza” had its baseball expert on, Jim Bowden, the clairvoyant general manager for the Washington Nationals who was saying the Angels were definitely going to get clobbered Wednesday night.

“Bill Lackey won’t make it through the fifth inning,” he said, and Bowden seemed pretty sure about it the way all the know-it-alls on ESPN tend to be -- with Plaschke the exception, of course.

It got me to wondering, though, when John Lackey took the mound in the sixth inning what was Bowden thinking then?

It was Bowden’s contention the Yankee bombers were going to rough up Lackey, and given the hot air coming from Bowden and the Santa Ana conditions, it should have favored New York.

“I guess he hasn’t been watching much this year,” Lackey said.

Lackey’s performance for 5 2/3 innings was Critical Step No. 1 in staying alive in these playoffs, giving up two Yankee runs but still keeping the Angels within small-ball reach of New York.

Bartolo Colon’s 21 wins will probably earn him the Cy Young, but Lackey’s 14-5 performance, 3.44 earned-run average and the memory of what he did in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series are the kind of gritty credentials the Angels are going to need if they intend to advance without much of an offensive attack.

“Lackey is fearless out there,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Everything starts with starting pitching. It’s the heartbeat of a club and with Lackey he’s a cowboy; he wants to get it done.”

If their starting pitchers -- better on paper than the Yankees with the exception of Randy Johnson -- can keep them close through six, turning the game over to the bullpen, which has been fortified by Kelvim Escobar, then the Rally Monkey has a chance of winning it.

Officially, Escobar got the win in Game 2, but it was a victory inspired by John Lackey’s performance. No telling, though, how Bill Lackey might have done.

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WHEN I heard Paul DePodesta was going to Italy after getting rid of the Micro Manager, I thought about Michael Corleone doing away with McCluskey and then fleeing to Sicily to avoid attention.

But then that would make Frank McCourt the Godfather, and I think I know who would wind up with the horse’s head in his bed, so never mind.

I do find it strange, though, that DePodesta’s sister elected to get married at a time when her brother’s team could very well have been competing in the playoffs -- unless she had inside information and knew better.

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DEPODESTA NAMED four of the five candidates he will interview for the Dodger job -- three of them with previous big league managerial experience with a combined record of 683-828. That would explain why the Dodgers would be so interested in them.

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THE OTHER day when I had lunch with “Size 0,” wife of the Boston Parking Lot Attendant, I asked who the Dodgers were going to market next season given the sad state of their current roster, and Jamie McCourt said, “Jeff Kent and Eric Gagne.”

I’m not sure giving Gagne a microphone and having him talk up the Dodgers is a good thing -- based on comments he made to the Orange County Register this week in a story written by Bill Plunkett.

“We’re the (expletive) Dodgers,” Gagne told the Register. “We should be like the Yankees. The Yankees don’t rebuild. They go out and get what they need to win. We have the resources to be like that; 3.6 million fans came out this year. We get, what, $40 million from TV revenue without doing a thing.

“I don’t want to be here if we’re just going to play kids and rebuild. Yeah, I put my name on a contract, and I respect that. But the Dodgers’ logo was on top of that contract -- not the Milwaukee Brewers or the (Triple-A) Las Vegas 51s.”

The Dodger brass has talked optimistically about next season, citing the return of several injured players. “Is it going to help? Absolutely,” Gagne told the Register. “But we need a lot. We’re in L.A. It’s an embarrassment to the city. It’s an embarrassment to the fans. It’s an embarrassment to everyone who came before us and wore the Dodger uniform to have a year like this.

“I know what the Dodgers represent, and this not what it represents at all.”

Now just imagine if they put a microphone in front of Kent.

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THERE WAS a buzz in the press box at the start of the game, someone saying, “The big guy was here.” Imagine my disappointment when I learned they weren’t taking about Times columnist Steve Lopez, but instead some guy named Arnold.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Jo:

“I found your column distasteful in general, but your comments on Jeremy Roenick uncalled for. I am a new Kings fan, but have been a Roenick fan since Chicago.... As the web mistress for JR’s official website, you needn’t worry about your columns being anything we may include when we report hockey ‘news.’ ”

I guess there’s no reason for me to write about hockey then.

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.