Let’s see whether Angels, Anderson can recover

BOSTON -- It means everything to a premier player when it comes along, the playoffs and the career-long chance to advance with an eye on capping it all with a championship.

Better to have two eyes on the prize, though, as Garret Anderson discovered Wednesday night in Fenway Park, the Cyclops failing to connect against Josh Beckett, Anderson’s right eye almost swollen shut from a viral infection.

The Angels, of course, as a team looked as if they played with their eyes closed, losing, 4-0 -- but no excuses from Anderson.

He turned wave after wave of reporters away from his locker, refusing to talk about his swollen eye, demanding instead that credit be given to Beckett’s dominating performance, “and let’s just move on to the next game.”

Later, though, when almost everyone had left the Angels clubhouse, Anderson relented, talking about the work and emotion that go into a 14-year career, then getting this far only to be blindsided now with the “bad timing” award of the playoffs so far.

Just imagine training for the Olympics and spraining an ankle before the floor exercise or twisting a knee before needing a triple lutz, and while Anderson in tights or sequins would probably not be a pretty sight, you get the picture.

“I won’t have any pity parties for myself,” said Anderson, who might as well have been waving a white cane at Beckett in his first two plate appearances. “None of this ‘why me’ stuff. But sure, it’s frustrating, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from losing my composure [with the media], but standing in a clubhouse amongst men, I’m no whiner.”

Anderson took batting practice, hitting a couple of balls over the wall, but anyone who saw his face on TV when the game began understands the additional handicap he faced.

“I’m just not an excuse kind of guy; I’ve always tried to take responsibility for what I do, and while I don’t like to do it often, I’ve just got to give credit to Beckett for pitching the game he did.”

That said, Anderson appeared for batting practice wearing a pair of sunglasses. “I just didn’t want to answer questions about my eye,” he explained, missing the opportunity to tell everyone, “yeah, but you should see what I did to Tyson.”

No such macho story to tell. “It just hit me hard on Sunday,” he said. “The same thing happened to me about six years ago during the off-season.”

We didn’t shake hands.

“It’s not infectious,” he said. “It’s not even scratchy. You know how it feels when you get some lint or something in your eye? It just waters up.”

Now ordinarily most players don’t tear up until after they’ve missed a 97-mph fastball, but then ordinarily most players aren’t taking drops in their eye every two hours -- just as they are about to try to hit a 97-mph fastball.

“I can see -- it’s just not crisp,” Anderson said of his vision. “You really have to make an effort to focus.

“The test was could I defend myself on any pitch up and in, and I felt I could see well enough to do that. I never had any thought of not playing.”

Everyone else in the Angels lineup could see just fine, but none of them produced a run, and as Manager Mike Scioscia put it, “Garret wouldn’t play if he couldn’t see the ball. He had no problem seeing the ball, he just didn’t have good at-bats tonight. If he’s not seeing the ball clearly -- he can’t play the game, he knows that.”

Anderson struck out in the first, though, looking like he never quite saw the strikeout pitch.

Ever since the All-Star break, Anderson has been the missing power ingredient in the Angels lineup, as much as anyone putting them in this position to win it all. But he might as well have been swinging a white cane, striking out in his second at-bat.

He popped up later and ended the game with a fly to center field. Not exactly what he had in mind when he worked so hard to make the playoffs.

“We ran into a first-strike pitcher tonight, and speaking personally,” he said, “I can get past that and move on to the next game.”

That explains in part the odd way in which Anderson answered the next question. Asked what he was thinking while flying across the country Monday, his eye closing shut at the most inopportune time, he said, “I kept thinking, we’re going to play two games in five days. Come on, let’s get it on and play. This game is all about momentum.”

But the extra day now will buy time for Anderson, and with Mr. HGH already out and Vlad Guerrero hurting, a lot is riding on the Cyclops’ recovery.

“It’s irritating because every day I hope it gets better, but it’s just kind of stayed the same,” Anderson said. “I just have to keep using the drops and wait for the virus to go away.”

Two losses in a row, though, and it might be the Angels who go away first.

“The mark of this team is to not carry something like this over to the next game,” Anderson said, and we’ll see -- so to speak.

BOSTON RELIEVER Brendan Donnelly, who pitched five years for the Angels and who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, said he called John Lackey on Tuesday night.

“I asked him if he wanted to go out for a beer,” Donnelly said. “I was prepared to go out all night with him and crawl in here if necessary -- to help our team.”

Too bad Lackey didn’t take him up on the invite.

THE LAST time I was in Fenway Park was 29 years ago writing about a one-game playoff between the Red Sox and New York Yankees, Bucky Dent settling the contest.

I sat that day next to the great New York Times sports columnist, Red Smith -- turning my typewriter away from him so he couldn’t see what I was writing. And then freezing.

I was writing, “he swung the bat,” while Smith was typing something like, “he swung the mighty mahogany.”

This time I was sitting next to the Orange County Register’s Jeff Miller, turning my computer away from him because I was hoping to get better wireless reception.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.