| Garrett Wilson. 22nd August, 2006 - 2:39 am
 The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim certainly didn’t live up to their moniker on Wednesday night (and by that I mean the Angels, not the ridiculous Anaheim-Los Angeles dual citizenship). After being baited by the Texas Rangers for several games, the Angels finally snapped and retaliated in a not-so-angelic fashion.
Wednesday night’s brawl was the culmination of weeks (if not years) of tension between the Halos and Rangers. For the last several games between the two squads, the Rangers have made a none too subtle effort to agitate the Angels, specifically Vladimir Guerrero. Apparently, the Rangers finally got tired of being repeatedly abused by Big Vlad (who is hitting nearly .440 against Texas for his career), so their pitching staff decided it was time to start throwing the ball at his head. After a few games of near-misses, Vicente Padilla finally was able to connect with a fastball to Guerrero’s left wrist on Tuesday. But Padilla wasn’t done there. The very next at-bat for Guerrero was started off with yet another brush back, to which Vlad responded to by taking Padilla deep.
That is where it should have ended. The Rangers tried to intimidate Vlad and instead only managed to rile him up. Mission failed, game over. Instead of just accepting that Guerrero has the Rangers’ number, Padilla resorted to a final act of cowardice. Shortly after Guerrero’s home run, Padilla deliberately beaned Juan Rivera (who had also been roughing up Texas pitching recently). At that point, the Angels simply had no choice but to retaliate.
As Mike Scioscia has explained on multiple occasions, he does not believe in beanball retaliation. But even for the most docile of managers, when your two best hitters are repeatedly targeted by an opponent, you have to defend your players. Baseball etiquette dictates that if you hit one of ours, we get to hit one of yours. On Tuesday, the Rangers hit two players, so Wednesday the Angels hit two players.
Once again, this is where it should have ended. Somehow, Texas and manager Buck Showalter took umbrage with the retaliation. Obviously, they forgot about the multiple brush back pitches against Vlad and the failed bean ball from Adam Eaton against Juan Rivera in the previous series. If anything, the Angels still owed the Rangers a few fastballs in the small of the back. Yet the Rangers felt the need to drill Adam Kennedy with one out left in the game, inciting him to charge the mound and igniting a bench-clearing brawl.
Brawling certainly isn’t the Angels’ style (as evidenced by the slapfight Kennedy had with Ranger pitcher Scott Feldman), but Kennedy simply had no choice but to charge the mound. Now, three Angel players and two coaches have been suspended, jeopardizing their play-off run. While the three players aren’t centerpieces of the team, the Halos will have to play short-handed in the field for the next week and short-handed in dugout with Mike Scioscia suspended. To think that the Angels might miss the play-offs in part because the Rangers got tired of getting their butts kicked (the Angels are 22-9 against the Rangers since last season) is a miserable thought.
Of course, maybe this is the wake-up call the Halos needed. After a hot streak in July the Halos have been hovering just above .500 as the Athletics pulled away. With Darin Erstad out most of the year with injuries and Jarrod Washburn departed via free agency, the Halos have been lacking a lot of the fire and competitiveness that has fueled them the last several years. If a bench-clearing brouhaha can’t get the blood boiling nothing can. |
