Scott Kazmir gets ready to face his former team
Scott Kazmir spent some time Sunday night and Monday catching up with his former teammates on the Tampa Bay Rays, who are in town for a three-game series.
Tuesday night, the Angels left-hander, who pitched for Tampa Bay from late 2004 until his trade to the Angels on Aug. 28, will make his first start against his former team.
“I talked to the guys, but now it’s time to get down to business,” Kazmir said. “They know my strengths; I know theirs. I think it will be fun.”
It would probably be a lot more fun if Kazmir could effectively throw the slider he has all but abandoned this season while going 2-2 with a 7.11 earned-run average in five starts.
Relying on his fastball and changeup, Kazmir has walked 16 and given up six home runs in 25 1/3 innings.
“When I first got there, man, it was lightning, it was like Ron Guidry’s, a really nasty, put-away kind of pitch,” Joe Maddon, who took over as Rays manager in 2006, said of Kazmir’s silder.
“It was a real good strikeout pitch. He was able to throw it to the back foot of right-handers and down and away from lefties. It’s no secret he’s had a problem with it the last couple of years.”
Though Kazmir is averaging five innings a start, he has thrown 502 pitches, an average of about 100 a game. The cause for his inefficiency: the missing slider.
“That’s the pitch that permits him to not throw as many pitches,” Maddon said. “He gets a lot of foul balls with two strikes, a lot of just-in-play balls that force him to throw another pitch because he’s not been able to get to that pitch as he has in the past.”
Joe no-no
If it’s a perfect game you’d like to see, hang around Maddon.
Oakland left-hander Dallas Braden threw the 19th perfect game in baseball history when he shut down the Rays on Sunday.
Chicago White Sox left-hander Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against Tampa Bay last July 23, and Maddon was the Angels bullpen coach July 28, 1994, when Texas left-hander Kenny Rogers threw a perfect game against the Angels.
That’s three times Maddon has been in the stadium, in an opposing uniform, for a perfect game.
“I’m your guy for a perfect game,” Maddon joked. “I’m on the bad side of history once again. It’s kind of amazing, but it happened.… We were expanding the zone more than normally, and our energy was down a bit. It was like the imperfect storm.”
On the mend
Catcher Bobby Wilson, who suffered a concussion and a left-ankle strain in a violent home-plate collision with the Yankees’ Mark Teixeira on April 23, went through a full workout Monday and expects to begin a minor league rehabilitation assignment with Class-A Rancho Cucamonga Tuesday or Wednesday.
Wilson watched several replays of the collision, “but it’s over with,” he said. “I’ve let it go.” He did, however, keep a picture of the collision a photographer gave him.
“I’m sure it will be one of those things you tell your kids some day,” Wilson said. “This is what happened to your dad when he got his first major league start — he got knocked out.”
Short hops
The Angels recalled pitcher Trevor Bell, who was 1-0 with a 2.04 ERA in three starts for triple-A Salt Lake, to bolster their bullpen and sent utility player Robb Quinlan back to Salt Lake.
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