Scioscia Can Feel Good About Choices at DH

Manager Mike Scioscia will have to decide whom to use at designated hitter when Garret Anderson’s sore lower back allows him to return to left field -- Juan Rivera or Casey Kotchman.

“That’s a nice problem to have when you’re trying to pick from a pool of bats that have been productive,” Scioscia said. “Too often this year we’ve been putting in [players at DH] hoping to be productive.”

Rivera is batting .333 in his last 11 games and has started 10 straight, and his 13 home runs and 51 runs batted in are career highs.

Kotchman is batting .293 with seven home runs and 20 RBIs in 35 games since being recalled from triple-A Salt Lake on Aug. 4.

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Scot Shields has found his groove again.

Since being booed off the Angel Stadium field on Sept. 18, when he gave up two runs in one-third of an inning on a walk, a single, a wild pitch and another single, the right-handed reliever has been untouchable. In three appearances he has given up no runs, no hits and no walks with five strikeouts in four innings.

Shields, working with pitching coach Bud Black, found that he had been leaning his head to the left on his delivery and losing his release point.

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Hitting coach Mickey Hatcher served his one-game suspension Saturday night in unconventional fashion -- with the grounds crew beyond the fence in left-center field.

“It was great. I was in the rocks, watching it on the big screen and had a beer an inning,” he said with a laugh. “It was exciting. When [Vladimir] Guerrero hit that home run, I wanted to jump up on those rocks. But they told me that’s where the fireworks shoot out from. I’m lucky I didn’t do that because I would have been hit by one of them.”

But seriously, Hatcher said it was “weird” taking in the game from someplace other than the dugout.

“Good things are starting to happen, those little magical breaks you need in a season,” he said.

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Chone Figgins was taken aback when told he shared the Gene Autry Trophy, symbolic of the team’s most valuable player, with starter Bartolo Colon after a clubhouse vote.

“It’s an honor from my teammates; it means that they respect the way you play the game,” said Figgins, a utility player who has played six positions this year and became the first in club history with at least 100 runs and 50 stolen bases.

Figgins’ 56 steals are tied for second in Angel history (Mickey Rivers had 70 in 1975) and tied for first in the American League with Chicago’s Scott Podsednik.

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With an announced crowd of 41,733, the Angels set a single-season attendance record of 3,404,686, eclipsing last season’s mark of 3,375,677.