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Friday, October 18
Angels have much more than Rally Monkey
By David Schoenfield
ESPN.com
You may have read Jim Caple's five reasons why the Giants will win. Don't listen to him. By picking San Francisco he is obviously ignoring the power of Rally Monkey. This is like the people who join the Flat Earth Society. Did Jim watch Games 4 and 5 of the American League Championship Series? I know he did -- he was there. In both games, the Angels rallied only after Rally Monkey made his seventh-inning appearance on the scoreboard to rouse up the fans.
But, the Angels don't rely solely on the power of the Monkey (even though they are undefeated in the postseason at home). Here are five other reasons the Angels will beat the Giants (in six games, by the way):
1. The Angels are better than you think. Don't think of Anaheim as merely a "wild-card team" (as you would the Giants). Playing in baseball's toughest division, the Angels won 99 games. Only three teams have won more games and not won a division title (the '93 Giants won 103, the 2001 A's won 102 and the '80 Orioles won 100). Plus, even though the Yankees and A's won more games, the Angels had the best run differential in the American League this year. That's actually a better indicator of a team's success than win-loss record. The Angels were the best team in the AL; the playoffs only proved that.
Oh, yeah, and the AL is the better league. Since 1983, the AL is 12-6 in the World Series.
2. Anaheim's hitting is on fire. Look, you may not believe in momentum or chemistry or any of those things, but there is not doubt the Angels' lineup is feeding off each other right now. The Angels are hitting a staggering .328 in nine postseason games (only the 1960 Yankees have a higher postseason team average). They've had two 10-hit innings (that had happened just in postseason history). Most impressively, the Angels have outhomered their opponents 17-7, after getting outhomered during the regular season.
Leading the way in the power department has been Troy Glaus, who has four home runs, including three in the eighth inning, all of which gave Anaheim the lead. Glaus had a disappointing season for him (30 home runs after averaging 44 the previous two seasons). Look for Glaus to hit a couple key blasts.
3. Francisco Rodriguez. Of course. The 20-year-old rookie with 12 career games (including the postseason) is too good and too young to let World Series pressure get to him. He'll continue to dominate (he's 4-0 with 15 K's in 10 innings in the playoffs).
4. The home-field advantage. The Angels have it, and while it gives Rally Monkey four chances to shine, the more important reason is it forces the Giants to find a designated hitter. And they don't have one. While the Angels get quality production from Brad Fullmer and Shawn Wooten, the Giants will have to turn to Tom Goodwin (ouch!), Ramon Martinez (egads!), Pedro Feliz (no!) or even Shawon Dunston (say it ain't so!).
5. Mike Scioscia will pitch to Barry Bonds. And, yes, it's the right thing to do. Scioscia issued the fewest intentional walks in the AL and he won't order his pitchers to back away from Bonds. They may get burned once or twice, but you can't keep issuing free walk after walk and not get burned by that, too.
David Schoenfield is the baseball editor at ESPN.com.
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