Day in L.A.

Onto new days in L.A.

LATimes — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:18:06 -0800

The Dodgers hired Joe Torre, the Galaxy hired Ruud Gullit, the Ducks won the Stanley Cup, the Angels won the American League West championship, Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine reached the College World Series, USC beat Cal, UCLA looks as if it’s going to get a new football coach, the Clippers went unbeaten longer than anyone expected and the Lakers have not yet traded Kobe Bryant for a box of half-eaten Chicago-style deep-dish pizza crusts.

My work here is done.

Actually, I am half-serious. With other writing assignments beckoning, and eating and sleeping still ranking as key survival requirements, I am moving “Day In L.A.” to the sideline with this entry.

Elsewhere on this Website and in The Times, you will be able to access my other three sports columns: “Sound and Vision,” “Week in the NFL” and “Don’t Bet The House (or the Rams).”

I received each of these assignments in early September, after discussions with Sports Editor Randy Harvey about ways to return my writing to the newspaper on a regular basis. Blogging about sports has been fun, but I began writing for The Times in 1983 and that’s a tough habit to break. It has been great to be back in the newspaper; I didn’t realize how important that was for me until those bylines began appearing two months ago.

I’d like to thank Randy for his input and support in helping get “Day In L.A.” off the ground. It was an assignment that sustained me, in more ways that one, during an important time in my life and career.

I’d also like to thank the readers who checked in regularly and emailed their opinions and observations on the L.A. sports scene. Their comments re-confirm what I have long believed about fans here: Sophistication and passion are not mutually exclusive.

We lost two NFL teams because the owners cared a lot less about the product than the fans. And about the national reputation Dodgers fans have -- that they arrive to games in the second inning and leave in the seventh: Unlike the Dodgers, at least they always show up.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Would you trade Kobe for A-Rod?

LATimes — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:17:12 -0700

The singular, self-obsessed world of Los Angeles sports abhors a star vacuum. It lives off big names in bright lights. It sustains itself with bigger-than-life (or at least bigger-than-the-team-around-him) athletes who often play the celebrity game better than the game that provides the paychecks.

Right now, L.A. is operating at a serious star-power deficit -- and that is with Kobe Bryant still grudgingly wearing a Lakers uniform. Remember the Lakers after Magic and before Shaq and Kobe? Or, for older fans, after Jerry West and before Kareem? The Lakers, and the entire L.A. sports scene, could topple into the same kind of darkness if and when Jerry Buss and Mitch Kupchak push the “eject” button on “Operation Kobe (It Was Fun Until We Completely Caved In To Kobe).”

Suppose Kobe leaves town tomorrow in exchange for a bunch of Bulls with more upside than star shine. Where does that leave a city so intrigued by celebrity that it named a pre-Dodgers baseball team the “Hollywood Stars” and an early American Basketball Assn. team the “Los Angeles Stars”?

Post-Kobe, where would we find the Los Angeles stars?

Hell-oooooo? Anybody out there?

Where’s David Beckham? Good question, that. All of America was asking that during most of The Season America Was Going To Finally Get MLS. Beckham is the biggest sports star in L.A., bigger than even Kobe, but he played all of five MLS games for the Galaxy, started two, did not have a shot on goal and did not qualify for the playoffs. The defining line on L.A.’s biggest star in 2007: “DNP.”

You can say the same for the Clippers’ top star at the moment, injured Elton Brand.

You can say the same for the biggest name on the Dodgers’ pitching staff, injured Jason Schmidt.

And you can say the same for the biggest name on the Ducks’ 2006-2007 Stanley Cup championship roster, Teemu Selanne. Selanne hasn’t formally announced his retirement, but he isn’t playing either. Sort like all the Dodgers this season after Sept. 15.

Who’s the biggest baseball star in L.A.? Russell Martin is building a resume, but nationally, he is still in the process of spreading the word. Nomar Garciaparra and Jeff Kent have the name recognition, but Garciaparra no longer recognizes many pitches he can hit over the fence, and Kent didn’t recognize the importance of recognizing how much help all those under-30 Dodgers could provide if he could manage a little reaching-out.

Over in Los Angeles of Anaheim, Vladimir Guerrero has all the numbers, but he’s more about pine tar-encrusted batting helmets and crushed baseballs than glamour.

Alex Rodriguez would fill that void. He could be coming to the Angels to join Guerrero if Arte Moreno, financially speaking, can cope with the concept of extending “Red October” to “Red April, May, June, July, August and September” too. Or A-Rod could go to the Dodgers, following Joe Torre across country and filling what one might call a need at third base.

Suppose Kobe goes and A-Rod comes. Would L.A. be a better place to follow sports? Certainly, it would take some getting used to. Kobe just had a huge game, 45 points, on the next to last day of October. A-Rod never has huge games in October. A-Rod goes deep often during May and June. Kobe hasn’t gone deep into May and June with any Lakers team since Shaq left.

Let’s compare their most recent playoff performances:

Kobe: Lost in the first round, 4 games to 1.

A-Rod: Lost in the first round, 3 games to 1.

One postseason victory apiece.

Call it a push.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Dodgers! Torre! (Oh, and it says here the Lakers also play their opener)

LATimes — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:16:30 -0700

Following the lead of Alex Rodriguez, who might be rejoining him soon on another coast, Joe Torre has found a way to produce bold headlines that are undermining and overshadow a once-hallowed sporting event of national importance:

The Lakers’ season opener.

After a long, tense and tedious summer of “Kobe Wants Out!” and “Kobe Wants In!” and “Kobe Wants Help!” and “No, None For You, Kobe!” a new bulletin has elbowed Kobe and Co. (and it’s not much of a company, as companies generally go) aside in favor of “Is Torre Coming to L.A.?”

Hours before the Lakers tip off the 2007-2008 season against the Houston Rockets, all we’re hearing in L.A. today is Torre news.

Report: Dodgers set to fire Grady Little and replace him with Torre.

Report: Torre to bring Don Mattingly with him as bench coach?

Report: Torre to bring A-Rod with him as Dodgers savior?

This is sports life in L.A. on Halloween Eve 2007. Rumors and Internet reports about an imminent managerial change by a long idle baseball team (idle since mid-September, actually) tops any reality about the Lakers. Which speaks immediately to the present state of the Lakers.

As all seasoned sports fans know, this is called payback. While the Dodgers were still flying reasonably high in the National League West, roughly through the end of July, their successes were obscured by Bryant’s daily mood changes and public temper tantrums. Today, Bryant is set to take the stage in L.A., whether he really wants it or not, and Torre and the Dodgers are front and center.

And they are not the only ones. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing the Sports Arena tonight. Lots of excitement and good chemistry on that team.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Injuryville

LATimes — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:30:01 -0700

Mention the word “injuries” around here and the Dodgers come out of hiding to be seen in public just long enough to say, “See! That’s the only thing keeping us from trading places with the Colorado Rockies! Well, that and team chemistry, and young prospects who produce in the clutch, and veteran players who have memorized the definition of the term ‘leadership,’ and a manager who can hold it together throughout September, and a 7-0 record in October and . . . hmm, you know, it’s says here our record in our last seven October games is 1-6. We must have had a bunch of injuries back then.”

Injuries have opened some interesting doors at USC and UCLA, where the Trojans have found a new theme for this season and the Bruins have found a new routine.

At USC, the predominant storyline has gone from “Are we the greatest team in college football history?” to “How’s John David Booty coming with his Heisman speech?” to “Stanford? Sure didn’t expect that” to “John David Booty? Or Mark Sanchez? Which quarterback would you want to start with the Holiday Bowl on the line?”

At UCLA, injuries, when taken in moderation, have confounded a lot of people, especially Cal fans and Bruins fans who think they should be allowed to text-message their own plays into the huddle whenever UCLA is faced with an inconsequential fourth-and-one situation in the third quarter. Ben Olsen’s injury has given way to continued rise of the Patrick Cowan Fan Club, which has its headquarters inside the Bruins’ locker room. Cowan’s popularity is based in that he gets results -- and that whenever he joins Olsen on the injured list, the result for UCLA is a home defeat against Notre Dame.

Then there’s Lamar Odom’s injury. In no way can this be considered even a mixed development for the Lakers, who don’t have enough good players to go around Kobe Bryant. (I seem to remember hearing Bryant saying something like that, at least once, maybe twice, during the summer). Now, the Lakers’ second-best player is expected to miss the team’s opener, and maybe the next three games as well, a stretch that includes games at Phoenix and at home against Utah.

Laker options at this point include watching Bryant set up an early-season assault on 82 or more points and / or wondering how to trade the untradeable as the defeats and the discontent begin to build a very different kind of pyramid.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Oct. 16, 2007: Stoneman makes a move

LATimes — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:49:34 -0700

Now we know why Bill Stoneman made no trades back during those lazy, hazy summer days when an October Freeway Series seemed like a can of corn compared to the odds of a World Series pitting Colorado against Cleveland.

He was making sure the cupboard wouldn’t be bare for Tony Reagins.

During a Tuesday news conference to announce the passing of the Angels’ GM baton, Stoneman said he was “worn down,” suffering from “the burnout factor.” This was greeted as shocking news by Angels fans, who assumed Stoneman had taken the summer off.

Actually, Stoneman kept busy enough. He said Tuesday that he began to talk with Angels owner Arte Moreno about potential successors three months ago. That takes us back to mid-July, just before the trade deadline. That, ultimately, was the big trade Stoneman was negotiating. Stoneman-for-Reagins, straight-up.

Future considerations?

None, unless you count how many times Reagins will consider Mike Scioscia’s opinion before making any kind of roster move. Scioscia’s dugout phone has just been equipped with new-for-2008 dialing options:

Dial “1” for the bullpen.

Dial “2” for pizza.

Dial “3” to tell GM Reagins to trade for a power hitter before the bottom of the eighth inning.

Stoneman steps aside with his Angels legacy chiseled into the artificial rocks beyond the outfield fence. He is the best general manager in the Angels’ 47-year existence. In fact, he is so far ahead of the competition that it’s tough to say who would be No. 2. Mike Port? He made fewer substantial trades than Stoneman. Buzzie Bavasi? He let Nolan Ryan get away. Harry Dalton? The best thing that could be said about Dalton is that he wasn’t Whitey Herzog.

Stoneman clinched the top spot five years ago, when The Angels Actually Won The World Series In Our Lifetime. Neo-fans who discovered the Angels after the Rally Monkey might not believe it, but there was a period of time when just the mention of the name “Angels” drew derisive laughs from sports fans. This period lasted from 1961-2001. It is also known among baseball anthropologists as “The No-Bling Dynasty.”

Impressively, Stoneman did not let the Angels back-slide after The Miracle of Katella Avenue. No doubt, he was greatly helped by the ever-timely infusion of Moreno’s millions, business savvy and enthusiasm. But Stoneman did tend to the farm system, and he closed enough free-agent deals to pave playoff runs in 2004, 2005 and 2007. This is harder than it might initially appear, as the Florida Marlins, Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals have recently learned.

New lessons have been provided the Angels this October.

They have seen that the road back to the World Series does not involve Alex Rodriguez. That has been a truism ever since A-Rod has been a big leaguer, since 1994, which was merely months after the Rockies played their first game.

We have also seen that the Red Sox can be beaten -- provided you can fight firepower with firepower. After losing ALCS Game 1, the Indians have taken the next three games from the Red Sox by the following scores: 13-6, 4-2, 7-3. Two of those games have featured seven-run innings by Cleveland.

The Angels had one three-run inning against Boston in the ALDS. They also had one one-run inning. And 25 no-run innings.

Reagins will have to find a way this winter to fill that gap. Provided Scioscia signs off on it first.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Week 41 Power Rankings

LATimes — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:02:15 -0700

This was the week Jerry Buss remembered he was the owner of the Lakers . . .

1. Colorado Rockies: Look, Dodgers, at what thou hath wrought.

2. Tyrone Willingham: His current team, Washington, gave USC a scare the Trojans would have heeded with more care. His former teams, Stanford and Notre Dame, swept through SoCal last weekend to wipe out SoCal College Football As We Once Knew It. Behold the awesome power of The Three Degrees Of Tyrone Willingham.

3. Manny Ramirez: If A-Rod is soon going to be asking $30 million a season, how much is Ramirez worth? At least in October, when it counts?

4. David Ortiz: Ditto.

5. Alex Rodriguez: The Yankees won one more game this postseason than the Angels and the Dodgers. Is that the going rate for playoff victories around here -- $30 million per?

6. Jerry Buss: Now he says Kobe Bryant is not untouchable. Now he says there is no way to trade a Kobe-caliber star for equal value. A lot of Lakers fans wish Buss was saying this stuff while Shaq was still a Laker.

7. Kobe Bryant: Suppose he and A-Rod just changed cities. No other strings attached. Kobe becomes a Knick, A-Rod becomes a Dodger. Would either city be better off? Let’s discuss.

8. Those Reggie Bush / David Beckham commercials: If impossible is nothing, that must explain Bush’s victory total this season and Beckham’s playing time since August.

9. Hope Solo: After being dropped from the U.S. women’s soccer team for speaking her mind, Solo is re-instated to the roster. Before making this decision, did Coach Greg Ryan consult an attorney? Or the U.S. Constitution?

10. Tennis match-fixing: When people during the last 15 years said professional tennis needs fixing, this isn’t what we had in mind.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Angels (make that: angels) pick a bad time to go lower case

LATimes — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:09:16 -0700

Watching the Angels surrender this first-round playoff series to the Boston Red Sox in three swift but hardly pain-free games reminded me of watching the Angels during the 1971 and 1972 seasons. (I was only a kid, of course.) That’s not to compare anybody on the current roster to Art Kusnyer or Winston Llenas -- although the ’71-72 Angels had just as many postseason home runs as the ’07 edition. Zero.

The 1971-72 Angels wore a lower case “a” on their caps and their jerseys. It was a sartorial gaffe that created a think-small subliminal message for the Angels -- I mean, “angels” -- and their fans for two highly undistinguished seasons. I don’t think it was any coincidence the ’71-’72 angels finished a combined 43 1/2 games out of first place.

Compared to what the ’07 Angels could have had in these playoffs, we were definitely stuck with the lower case angels during this October. The team that lost Sunday’s eliminator, 9-1, literally bore little resemblance to the squad that left the Seattle Mariners dog-paddling in Puget Sound in August and September.

Remember them?

Remember those late-summer Angels? The ones who had the majors’ most productive second-half RBI man (Garret Anderson) . . . and the majors’ best right fielder (Vladimir Guerrero) . . . and a Gold Glove-caliber center fielder (Gary Matthews Jr.) . . . and a just-emerging 24-year-old prospect (Casey Kotchman) with potential to be the Angels’ best first baseman since Wally Joyner?

On the first Sunday of October 2007, this was the answer to “Where Are They Now?”

-- Matthews was a no-show all series, left off the playoff roster because of knee tendinitis, a condition that flared up during the regular season’s final week.

-- Anderson was pulled after the first two innings of a must-win Game 3 because of an eye infection that left him squinting at a succession of All-Star pitchers.

-- Guerrero, pulled in the eighth inning of a still-tied Game 2 on Friday after being hit by a pitch, was trying to play with two sore arms and precious little protection behind him in the lineup.

-- Kotchman, who batted .298 with 68 RBI during his first full big-league season, ended this playoff series against the Red Sox in a hospital bed, which was sticking a little too close to the “next Wally Joyner” story line. Joyner was an All-Star during his 1986 rookie season, but only played in three ALCS games against the Red Sox before being hospitalized with the most ill-timed staph infection in club history. Joyner batted .455 in those three games, two of them Angels victories. Without him, the Angels lost the last three games and, with it, the pennant.

(Angels historical footnote: That was a staph infection in Joyner’s skinned shin. Which is quite different from the staff infection that plagued the angels’ bullpen in 1971 and 1972.)

Guerrero, Matthews, Anderson and Kotchman were the Angels’ top four home-run hitters. Is it any wonder the Angels struggled to produce runs against Boston? Turn the tables and envision how the Red Sox would have fared had similar conditions struck David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek.

This lower-case version of the ’07 Angels had no chance against the Red Sox. That wasn’t Arte Moreno’s fault. Moreno has spent the money to make what was once one of the most hapless franchises in professional sports a consistent contender. It wasn’t Mike Scioscia’s fault, either. Name another man you’d rather have running this team. Would you trade Scioscia for Grady Little?

For Lou Piniella (see his Game 1 NLDS decision to pull ace Carlos Zambrano after six innings)?

For Joe Torre (see the 2002 and 2005 playoff defeats he suffered against Scioscia)?

The Angels are all right in the owner and manager positions. General manager, of course, is another point of contention around Los Angeles Of Anaheim. Bill Stoneman takes the “even-keel” approach -- usually much admired in clubhouses and boardrooms -- to maddening extremes. Stoneman is content to counter-punch and keep his team in the ring with a chance rather than go for the knockout when the situation juts out its jaw.

The 2007 season was one of those chances. Stoneman and the Angels had the American League on the ropes -- and let the pennant wriggle away. Stoneman stuck to his medium-range guns, which was OK when it came to overtaking the AL West. But it proved a crucial mistake when the Red Sox came rumbling along, rolling in the howitzers and the missile-launchers.

Sunday night, I was talking on the phone about the Angels’ demise with longtime friend who closely follows the Dodgers and the Angels. We agreed that the Angels had a good starting lineup, good enough to beat at least half the 2007 playoff field.

“Just not good enough to beat the Red Sox,” my friend said.

And that’s as good an epitaph for this Angels season as you are apt to find.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Week 40 Power Rankings

LATimes — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 13:12:12 -0700

This was the week the Angels visited Boston, the Ducks returned from London, and the Angels suffered the more severe strain of culture shock . . .

1. New England: As some Chargers fans were saying to some Angels and Lakers fans the other day, this New England over SoCal stuff must be stopped. But what, within reason and rational time constraints, can be done? All right, Boston, hear this! A new football challenge! USC versus Boston College! At the L.A. Coliseum! Pick any Sunday you want! The Coliseum is always available on Sundays!

2. Colorado: The Buffaloes upset Oklahoma. The Rockies are 15-1 since stepping onto Coors Field for the first game of that Sept. 18 doubleheader against the Dodgers. . . . About this Rockies-Phillies playoff series -- I, for one, am suspicious. My theory: The Phillies never make the playoffs anymore, so by habit they all went home on Oct. 1 to fish and golf. Philadelphia management suddenly realized, “Hey! We have three more games to play! We need some players!” So a call was placed to Ned Colletti, who agreed to send the Dodgers to Philly as emergency temporary help.

3. Arizona: Almost everybody in the state -- from the D-backs to the Sun Devils to, good grief, even the Cardinals -- is winning. Although this quarterback shuttle thing the Cardinals are trying is beginning to get on Matt Leinart's nerves. Every time they cross paths on the field, Kurt Warner keeps flashing his Super Bowl ring at Leinart.

4. Cleveland: Upcoming passage from “The New History of Cleveland Sports,” to be published in October 2017: “And in 2007, the city had an unexpectedly glorious six-month run! The Cavaliers reached the NBA Finals! The Browns finally found a quarterback! The Indians swept the Yankees in the first two games of the ALDS! And then LeBron James went and ruined everything for the next decade by wearing a Yankees cap to an Indians playoff game and announcing to the world he was rooting for the Yankees.”

5. Anaheim: The Angels and the Ducks can’t wait to get back to the place. You won’t get Arte Moreno and his lawyers to ever admit it, but for Moreno's band of bedraggled baseball players, the 714 is home sweet home.

6. Indiana: Tumultuous football times in this state. The Colts have never been better. The Fighting Irish have never been worse. At least you can always count on the high schools.

7. San Diego: The Chargers are in Denver on Sunday, trying to make amends for what the Rockies did to the Padres. Quite frankly, nobody in San Diego is very excited about it.

8. L.A.: Kobe’s back in camp, but everybody knows he wants out. The Dodgers got so confused this season they thought they were playing the old 154-game schedule. Things have gotten so bad that even our greatest modern-era female athlete, Marion Jones, has confessed to steroids use. So, we are down to this: Go Trojans! Go Bruins!

9. New York, New York: Question today for Mets and Yankees fans: Is it better to have made the playoffs and lost than to have tanked down the stretch in so grotesque a fashion that everybody’s forgotten the ’64 Phillies, the ’78 Red Sox and the ’95 Angels?

10. Chicago: Question today for Bears and Cubs fans: What happened to the pitching?

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Hex of Hendu just won't go away

LATimes — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:54:15 -0700

I hate to bring this up again after all these years, but somebody has to say something about the elephant in room. Just look at that thing. It's wearing red socks and dreadlocks and it just scared the Rally Monkey out the door, down the hall, out into the street and down the block screaming for help.

Ever since Dave Henderson deposited that Donnie Moore forkball over the left-field fence on Oct. 12, 1986, the Angels are winless in playoff games against the Boston Red Sox.

After losing Game 5 at home in the '86 ALCS, the Angels had two more chances in Boston to clinch a pennant for Gene Autry and Gene Mauch -- and they went 0-for-2. Aggregate score: Red Sox 18, Angels 5.

Eighteen years later, the Angels worked up the courage to play Boston in another playoff series, first round this time. Boston swept three straight. Aggregate score: Red Sox 25, Angels 12.

Back in the playoffs, back in Boston, in 2007, the Angels are 0-for-2 again, Manny Ramirez doing the Hendu thing one more time to Francisco Rodriguez Friday night. Or was that more a re-rerun of David Ortiz ending the '04 ALDS with his two-run home run off Jarrod Washburn?

All these franchise-crushing October moments the Angels keep having against the Red Sox -- it's tough to keep them straight.

Ramirez gave the Red Sox a 6-3 Game 2 victory by launching a three-run, game-ending home run that soared high into the New England night, seemingly reaching an altitude higher than the Angels' depressed flight back to Los Angeles Of Anaheim.

Including infamous Game 5 of '86, the Angels' record in their last eight postseason games against the Red Sox is 0-8. And unless they can figure out a way to score some runs against Curt Schilling on Sunday with a lineup that can't afford any more injuries but keeps running up that tab anyway, the Angels will be over and out until '08.

Friday, Vladimir Guerrero, already trying to gut out a playoff game in right field with a sore throwing arm, got hammered by a Manny Delcarmen fastball in his left arm, his good arm, in the seventh inning -- and was out of the game by the eighth.

Angels sluggers -- and there weren't that many of them to begin with -- have been cursed since the Angels clinched the AL West championship on Sept. 23. (Angels' record since then: 2-6.)

During the build-up (so to speak) to Game 1: Gary Matthews Jr. (18 regular-season home runs) is de-activated from the Angels' playoff roster because of knee tendinitis.

Just before Game 1: Garret Anderson (16 home runs) contracts conjunctivitis in his right eye, meaning he has to try to hit against Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jonathan Papelbon with one eye swollen shut.

During Game 2: Guerrero (27 home runs) is hurting enough to warrant removal from the lineup in the eighth inning of a 3-3 game.

That's 61 home runs -- virtually half of the 123 homers the Angels hit during regular season. Casey Kotchman is the only other Angels player with more than 10 home runs. He has hit 11.

Some free advice for Kotchman: Upon your return home, steer clear of black cats. And, considering the scouting report the Red Sox have on Angel Stadium, black rats too.

christine.daniels@latimes.com

Angels get time off for panicky behavior

LATimes — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:17:05 -0700

Now is not the time to panic, Angels fans.

Take deep breaths. Find a comfortable chair and pour yourself a cold beverage. Meditation is a good idea. Try that. Try to think positive thoughts. Such as:

-- Josh Beckett will only pitch once more this series, max.

-- Only two more game at Fenway Park till 2008, max.

-- Boston’s Game 2 starter, Daisuke Matsuzaka, has never beaten the Angels.

(He’s never lost to them, either. In fact, he’s never pitched against them. But this is glass-half-full time, remember.)

-- The 2002 Angels lost Game 1 in the ALDS, ALCS and World Series and still won it all.

-- Garret Anderson, Chone Figgins, John Lackey and Francisco Rodriguez were there in 2002. More importantly, so was Mike Scioscia.

OK.

All right.

That’s good.

Now you can panic.

Beckett’s four-hit 4-0 shutout Wednesday night can be written off as the postseason’s best starting pitcher getting in an unstoppable groove in front of the home crowd and against a banged-up opponent. Wipe the slate clean, Angels, and hand the ball to Kelvim Escobar. Except . . .

-- The Angels started a shaky outfield defense with rookie Reggie Willits (one previous Fenway career starts) in center field and Figgins (three) in right field -- and neither was a factor. Willits had one ball hit to him, Mike Lowell’s third-inning single, and Figgins did not have a put-out until he replaced Willits in center in the eighth inning.

-- All of the Angels’ top three power threats are ailing. Gary Matthews Jr. is out with knee tendinitis. Anderson has an eye infection that him look like a better roster fit for the Pirates. Vladimir Guerrero has one of the best throwing arms in baseball, but it’s hurting him, limiting him to DH duty. Defensively, that didn’t hinder the Angels in Game 1, unless Guerrero had been assigned to find the baseballs Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz hit for home runs and relay them back to the dugout.

-- After Guerrero, who had two singles in four at-bats, the Angels’ most dangerous-looking hitter was Figgins, who had one single in four at-bats and is now 1 for his last 26.

-- Every member of the Red Sox bullpen enjoyed a leisurely Wednesday night off.

This has the look over a very short series, very possibly a repeat of Boston’s three-game sweep in 2004. On the bright side for the Angels, unless there is rain on Friday, they will able to get out of Boston in a matter of hours, and probably won’t be required to return for months.

christine.daniels@latimes.com