Expectant Erstad Stays Here for Now

The Angels will fly to Baltimore this morning for the first leg of a 10-game trip, and Darin Erstad will be left behind, a strange sensation the center fielder has not experienced since April 2002, when he was “loopy” after suffering a concussion diving for a ball in Oakland and couldn’t accompany the team to Seattle.

Erstad will remain in Southern California to be with his wife, Jessica, who was due to deliver the couple’s first child Saturday but still had not gone into labor as of Wednesday night.

Doctors are scheduled to induce labor Friday, so Erstad will miss at least the first of a four-game series against the Orioles. He might also miss Saturday’s game.

“This is a new one for me,” Erstad said. “Even if they induce labor Friday the child might not be born until Saturday, so it might be a couple of days. I’ll just have to play it by ear.”

Manager Mike Scioscia said Juan Rivera or Chone Figgins would start in center in Erstad’s absence, with Edgardo Alfonzo or Maicer Izturis filling in at third if Figgins goes to the outfield and Tim Salmon probably starting at designated hitter if Rivera plays outfield.

“Any time you don’t have Ersty you’re short-handed, but we have enough depth to absorb his loss,” Scioscia said. “This is an important time for Ersty and Jessica, and you want things to turn out right. Sometimes, when you’re having a baby, your mind can be other places, but he’s played through it well.”

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Casey Kotchman did not start Wednesday, but Scioscia said that had more to do with his desire to get right-handed Robb Quinlan’s bat in the lineup against Ranger left-hander John Koronka than Kotchman’s sluggish start.

Still, the Angels were concerned enough about Kotchman that batting instructor Mickey Hatcher had a lengthy pregame workout with the first baseman Tuesday afternoon, a session that might have contributed to the two opposite-field hits Kotchman had Tuesday night to raise his average to .231.

“Casey has been overanxious, he’s taken a few over-aggressive swings, and that has gotten him out of his game a bit,” Scioscia said. “We tried to do some things to counter that, we’ve stressed that he go the other way because he had gotten away from that. He got into a little rut, but he’s going to be fine.”

Kotchman, who hit .421 with a team-leading 15 RBIs in spring training, made outstanding diving stops of grounders Saturday against the Yankees and Monday against the Rangers, but he also has looked a little tentative in his at-bats that have ended with strikeouts.

“A lot of it is just telling him to have good at-bats, take your walks,” Hatcher said. “Any young kid who’s hitting .230, he thinks he has to get a bunch of hits to get his average up to .300. He has to understand teams are scouting him, and he has to make adjustments.”

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Dallas McPherson hit his first home run for triple-A Salt Lake on Tuesday, but the third baseman’s overhaul of his swing, a process he started in spring training, has hardly been a success so far -- McPherson was batting .167 through six games, with 15 strikeouts in 24 at-bats.