Prior to Saturday night’s game between the Los Angeles Angels and Kansas City Royals, manager Mike Scioscia called his veteran trio of players and All-Stars—Vernon Wells, Torii Hunter and Bobby Abreu--into his office for a little tete-a-tete.
Essentially, Sciosca put the onus of the Angels’ current offensive woes on them.
Well, it wasn’t quite that simple, but Scioscia let his veterans know that they absolutely needed to step up their game if the Halos were to have any chance of turning around the season-long offensive inefficiency and have any shot at competing in the AL West.
"We were just talking about some things in the lineup we need to move forward with," Scioscia told Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. "The gist of the meeting was not one of those guys has to carry us. As a whole, that group is a good middle of the order if they just get into their games.
"These guys are really trying hard and sometimes trying so hard it's counter-productive. You just want them to focus on doing what they can do and not make every at-bat life-and-death and try to carry us. They just need to square some balls up and if they're not getting pitches to hit, pass the baton to the next guy."
That was something that was easier said than done through the first 65 games of the season for the veteran trio. But on Saturday, after the Scioscia “pep talk,” he inserted Hunter, Abreu and Wells into the 2-3-4 spots in the batting order, and the trio responded.
Wells collected sharp singles in his first three at-bats and scored three runs, Abreu had one hit and scored the eventual game-winning run on an Aaron Crow wild pitch in the seventh inning, and Hunter threw out Melky Cabrera at the plate in the top of the seventh to prevent the Royals from breaking a 5-5 tie. For Hunter, it was his eighth outfield assist of the season, none more important than that particular throw.
“I had a clean scoop on it and I just told myself to make a nice, accurate throw to the plate and give Jeff Mathis something he could handle,” Hunter said. “I knew that if they sent him, he was dead. I couldn’t believe that they sent him.”
The veteran trio ended up 4-for-10 on the night with four runs scored, and while they didn’t drive in any runs, they provided the offensive spark that allowed Howie Kendrick and Erick Aybar to follow through with run-producing hits—Aybar smacked a bases-clearing triple in the bottom of the first to give the Angels a 3-0 lead.
Scioscia was clearly sending a message in this game—all of the rookies who have seen significant playing time on this night sat out this one. Peter Bourjos came in as a defensive replacement, but first baseman Mark Trumbo and Hank Conger were both spectators on this night.
Trumbo is leading all American League rookies in home runs and total bases, so no doubt he’ll continue to get his at-bats, however on this night, Scioscia made it absolutely clear that he expected his veterans to shoulder the offense and step it up.
For at least one night, it worked.
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