No panic by Angels, but it’s time for a meeting
Reporting from Seattle -- When the Angels hit a mini-skid earlier this season, Torii Hunter shrugged off suggestions he call a team meeting.
“Team meetings,” he said “are like panic.”
In that case, consider the Angels panic-stricken. A day after meeting briefly behind closed doors with Manager Mike Scioscia in Boston, the team called a players-only meeting Friday afternoon in Seattle, then ended their seven-game losing streak by beating the Mariners.
No one would discuss what went on in the 20-minute meeting, but before the gathering, which took place in the visitors’ weight room, pitcher Joe Saunders said the Angels just needed to relax and stop pressing.
“When you press it’s never a good thing. I think we’re all kind of pressing right now,” he said. “We just have to realize less is more sometimes. Not try to do too much and not try to strike everybody out on the first pitch.
“We’ve just got to stay within ourselves and play our brand of baseball. And if we lose, we lose on own terms. Not because we beat ourselves.”
The Mariners, who have been just as bad as the Angels this season, also held a meeting Friday, in which Manager Don Wakamatsu delivered a message similar to the one the Angels got.
“I’m going to use an Ozzie Guillen quote,” Wakamatsu told reporters after the 30-minute meeting. “We’re only 28 games into the season. For me to panic would be dumb.
“Right now we have a lot of individuals trying to do it all themselves.”
Ryan up, Izturis down
Infielder Maicer Izturis, who hasn’t played in the field since aggravating his surgically repaired right shoulder Monday, had an MRI exam performed Friday afternoon. But even before the Angels knew the results — which are pending review by Dr. Lewis Yocum, the team’s medical director — the team called up outfielder Michael Ryan from triple-A Salt Lake.
To clear roster spots for Ryan, a left-handed hitter who was batting .351 in the minors, the team optioned right-hander Matt Palmer to Salt Lake and designated minor league pitcher Fernando Rodriguez for assignment.
“Matty Palmer is a guy that we have projected to be high on our depth chart as a starter and [to] have a real important role in the bullpen. And right now he’s having some command problems, which is making it tough for him to fill that role,” Scioscia said of Palmer, who has given up 18 runs, 31 hits and 16 walks in 23 innings. “He needs to go down and pitch and find some stuff. It’s going to be tough to work out in the major leagues.”
The rest is history
The slumping Angels have lacked both pitching and hitting on their current trip. But now they’re lacking sleep as well, the result of a schedule that will have them fly a baseball-high 50,509 miles this season.
The Chicago White Sox will fly fewer than half that many.
After Thursday’s 3-hour 43-minute loss to the Red Sox, the Angels flew cross-country and didn’t arrive at their Seattle hotel until 4:15 in the morning, about 10 hours before the first players began filing into the clubhouse at Safeco Field.
“You know what? The schedule’s the schedule,” Scioscia said. “There’s nothing in the schedule that’s any tougher than it already is. It’s a grind. The fact that maybe occasionally you get in early in the morning doesn’t make it unbearable.”
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