The Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels both came into this season with high expectations. The Dodgers payroll for this season is at $214 million while The Angels are at $141 million. Both teams went out and spent big last winter in free agency. The Dodgers signed starting pitcher Zack Greinke to a six-year, $147 million deal while The Angels signed free agent outfielder Josh Hamilton to a five-year $125 million deal. With two of the highest payrolls in Major League Baseball this season, all that The Angels and Dodgers have to show for it at this point are a pair of sub-.500 records while both teams are in fourth place in their respective divisions.
The Angels are currently owners of a record of 11-20 as they are in fourth place in The American League West. The Angels have never been above .500 at any point this season while they have have managed to win just two series on the season. The Angels pitching staff has really hurt them as they are 14th in team earned run average in The AL at 4.78. The Angels pitching staff has surrendered 129 walks on the season which leads The American League.
The Angels pitching staff has been reeling since starting pitcher Jered Weaver was hit in his left elbow by a baseball on April 7 against The Texas Rangers as he has been out of action since then. Weaver was expected to be the ace of the staff, but nobody else has stepped up behind him in the rotation. After the 2011 season, The Angels signed free agent pitcher C.J. Wilson to a five-year, $75 million deal, but he has been mediocre. Wilson is 3-0 on the season, but he currently checks in with an earned run average of 4.04 while he leads The American League with 22 walks in just 35.2 innings worked. In the off-season Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto signed free agent pitcher Joe Blanton to a two-year deal worth $15 million, but all Blanton has produced so far is a 0-5 record with a 5.97 earned run average.
Any offensive success that The Angels intend to have this season centers around Hamilton, first baseman Albert Pujols, and the reigning American League Rookie of The Year center fielder Mike Trout. Hamilton is a career .300 hitter, but to this point of the season Hamilton’s batting average is at .208 and he has only been able to hit 2 home runs with 9 runs batted in. Angels manager Mike Scioscia saw this last season from Pujols. After Pujols signed a 10-year, $264 million contract to join The Angels, he struggled mightily as he failed to hit a home run last April while recording a .217 batting average for the month. Pujols rebounded as he finished the season with 30 home runs with a .285 batting average. A troublesome foot injury has limited Pujols this season as he is only hitting .237 with 5 home runs. Trout is still contributing at the top of The Angels lineup, but his .275 batting average is 51 points down from where it was in 2012.
Things changed for The Dodgers last season when a group led by Basketball Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson purchased the team. Since then The Dodgers have become The New York Yankees of The National League as money has been spent freely. Last season The Dodgers gave lucrative extensions to outfielders Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp while taking on the big contracts of outfielder Carl Crawford, starting pitcher Josh Beckett, and infielders Adrian Gonzalez, and Hanley Ramirez. The Dodgers finished 2012 with a record of 86-76, but they failed to qualify for the playoffs as they sat by and watched their arch-rival The San Francisco Giants win their second World Series Championship in three seasons.
Johnson and Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti opened up the vault once again this past winter as they signed Greinke away from The Angels. Greinke’s season changed on April 11 in a game against The San Diego Padres when Greinke struck Padres outfielder Carlos Quentin with a pitch. These two have a history that dates back to when both players were in The American League Central as Greinke was a member of The Kansas City Royals and Quentin was with The Chicago White Sox. Greinke had hit Quentin several times, but he never charged the mound until now. When Quentin charged the mound, Greinke proceeded to protect himself with his left shoulder. The end result was that Greinke suffered a broken collarbone and he has been on the disabled list since.
Starting pitcher Chad Billingsley had been feeling discomfort in his elbow since the end of the 2012 season. The Dodgers wondered about Tommy John surgery and it finally came to fruition as Billingsley was shut down after his April 15 start against The Padres. Shortstop Hanley Ramirez injured his thumb while playing for his native Dominican Republic in The World Baseball Classic which kept him sidelined for most of the month of April. In his fourth game back since returning from the disabled list, Ramirez injured his hamstring last Friday night against The Giants. Ramirez was expected to give Dodgers manager Don Mattingly more depth in the lineup, but those plans have changed.
Kemp and Ethier have struggled in the middle of The Dodgers order. Kemp currently has a .263 batting average with 1 home run while Ethier has a .250 batting average with 3 long balls. For Kemp this is a far cry from last season when he started the season on fire. Last April, Kemp batted .417 with 12 home runs and 25 runs batted in before a hamstring injury derailed his season in the middle of May. Any success that The Dodgers expect to have this season will revolve around Kemp getting on track. However the two players who have contributed the most to The Dodger lineup are Crawford and Gonzalez.
After the 2010 season, The Boston Red Sox were aggressive in bringing in talent. Gonzalez signed a seven-year, $154 million deal with The Red Sox after they were able to work out a trade with The Padres. Crawford signed a seven-year, $142 million deal with The Red Sox to leave The Tampa Bay Rays. So far Gonzalez has a .337 batting average with a .398 on-base percentage as he appears to be comfortable back in Southern California. A .260 batting average and 23 stolen bases in his year-plus with The Red Sox didn’t endear Crawford to “The Fenway Faithful”, but after Tommy John surgery last year on his left arm, Crawford has started out strong in 2013 as he is batting .311 with 4 home runs.
The men under the most pressure are Scioscia and Mattingly. Both men were handed the keys to expensive cars, but it doesn’t mean anything to have a fancy car when it is stuck in traffic on The Santa Monica Freeway. Entering play today The Angels find themselves 9 games behind The Texas Rangers for first place in The AL West while The Dodgers are 5 games behind The Giants. With two high-profile teams in the second largest media market in The United States and two tremendous payrolls, the fans and the respective front offices want to see results on the baseball field. Scioscia has been with The Angels since 2002. As a player Scioscia won a World Series in 1988 with The Dodgers, but he endeared himself to Angel fans as he managed The Angels to a World Series Championship in 2002. Scioscia’s 1,166 career victories as Angels skipper are by far the most in franchise history, but when the expected results are not happening on the field, 2002 seems like an extremely long time ago. Scioscia survived last season, but his longtime hitting coach and former Dodger teammate Mickey Hatcher didn’t as he was fired after clash
ing with Pujols. In his two seasons with The Dodgers, Matitngly has never suffered a losing season, but he is in the ultimate pressure cooker. When people see an expensive team such as The Dodgers, they expect results. Mattingly is accustomed to dealing with the pressure as he did it for numerous years with The Yankees; first as a player and then as a coach.
If things don’t work out for either The Dodgers or Angels this season, we could see Mattingly and Scioscia at The House of Blues singing “the blues”.
Source:Baseball-reference.com
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