Lineup Switch Fails to Light Up the Angels

By J.A. Adande

Sept. 25, 2004 12 AM PT

It looks as if there won’t be a flip of the switch, or a snap of the finger. No simian savior for the Angels, no matter how much that monkey jumps around.

This is it. One last lap around, with no chance for a pit stop.

They can’t expect any gifts, not even when fan appreciation day rolls around.

“You just want to play good baseball from start to finish,” Angel outfielder Garret Anderson said. “We can’t expect any handouts.”

Manager Mike Scioscia held a meeting last Sunday and the Angels dropped two of their next three. He rearranged the lineup Friday and the Angels suffered a 6-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics in the first game of their critical series.

“Everything we can do, we’ve looked at,” Scioscia said. “We’ve turned things inside-out. We’ve got a lot of confidence in the guys who are on the field. We just need to get productive.”

In other words, things need to change.

On his way past the Angel dugout for afternoon stretching, Jose Guillen noticed the huge media crowd surrounding Scioscia and couldn’t resist chiding the manager who always emphasizes the day-by-day approach.

“It’s just one game, like every day,” Guillen said mockingly.

Scioscia fired back a shot about how he liked it better when Guillen wasn’t talking, then resumed his explanation of why he had made such dramatic changes to the lineup for game No. 153.

After the Angels couldn’t do better than three runs in seven of 10 games, Scioscia moved Darin Erstad and Troy Glaus to the first two spots because “we need to get guys on base for Vlad [Guerrero] and Guillen and GA [Anderson].”

“We’re down to 10 games,” he said. “When you look at what we need and where guys are, right now we think the No. 1 priority is to try to get the table set a little better for the middle guys.”

But it doesn’t matter if you’re using paper plates or the fine china if the big boys aren’t using good table manners.

Guerrero isn’t even bothering with the utensils. He’s just trying to shove the food in his face. He keeps swinging at the first pitch (and the second and the third) as if he’s trying to end the game right then and there. Instead he’s ending innings. He made the third out in each of his first three at-bats Friday, leaving runners on base in the third and fifth innings.

Guillen entered Friday night batting .250 for the month, with more strikeouts than hits since Sept. 13.

Anderson must be on some strange diet, or that left knee is bothering him more than we know, because he doesn’t seem to be himself. What used to be the most common sight in baseball -- Anderson pulling into second for a double -- is a scene we’ve witnessed only twice this month.

The more you watch the Angels, the less they look like the Angels, that group that willed its way to the World Series a couple of years ago. They did it with patience and persistence, with the understanding that big innings are often made of several small plays.

David Eckstein took a weak swing at an inside pitch that he would have let hit him in 2002, when he was plunked a league-high 27 times.

And remember Anderson sliding to make a huge catch against Minnesota in the league championship series that year? Friday he was watching balls sail over his head and bounce off the outfield wall.

Scioscia’s other hope with the lineup juggle was that the bottom end would come through and provide some RBI opportunities for Glaus. But Eckstein and Chone Figgins went a combined one for seven.

For a moment in the third inning it looked as if everything might materialize for Scioscia when the Angels loaded the bases with one out, thanks to singles by Dallas McPherson and Figgins and a walk by Erstad. But the best they could do was a run on a hard-hit sacrifice fly to center by Glaus before Guerrero grounded to short for the third out.

The Angels added another run in the fifth, and on many nights this season that would have been enough for starter Kelvim Escobar. But he didn’t have the good stuff Friday. He gave up three runs in the top of the first -- as many as he gave up in his three previous starts -- and two more in the fourth on a home run by Eric Byrnes.

You don’t need to look at the faces this time of year to read the stress in the managers’ faces, to sense the urgency. Just check the box scores.

Texas’ Buck Showalter used five pitchers through the first seven innings of its loss to Seattle on Friday.

For Scioscia, whose demeanor was pretty much unchanged, the evidence was in the lineup card. This was not just another game, this was no time for business as usual.

It’s not quite panic time, either. The Angels are three games behind Oakland with five head-to-head meetings remaining. “It’s still in front of us,” Scioscia said. The Rangers’ loss meant the Angels didn’t drop into third place.

And at least McPherson is up to the challenge. He had a single and a home run, scoring two runs.

Maybe he can move up in the lineup.

J.A. Adande can be reached at: [email protected]. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.