Halos Heaven detects a rift in the player manager continuum:
“Hunter’s remark seemed to be a veiled criticism of Scioscia for not having Maicer Izturis bunt after Hunter and Vernon Wells opened the second with singles. Izturis flied to left. Asked if the game could have changed with some early execution, Hunter said, “You mean if we bunted in the second? What can we do? All we do is play the game.” Just like when President Johnson said about the Viet Nam war, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America”, if Scioscia has lost Torii Hunter, he’s lost the clubhouse.
The Angels haven’t gone through many troughs like this under Mike. I suspect they’ll pull through just fine, and winning will heal everything.
Pujols probably won’t put up a .601 OPS for the entire year. But I doubt Wilson will put up a 2.42 ERA for the season, either.
Last year the Angels had a +34 run diff. Most everybody expected Pujols and Wilson to lift that to, oh, at least +80 or so. Which would make the Angels serious contenders for one of the wild cards, even if the Rangers take the division.
It could still happen, of course. But the Angels are noticeably underwater on run diff so far this year, and doubts (Pujols is really 32 years old?) are starting to creep in.