At Home Plate - Injury Bug Meets Angels

Written by Matthew Geer (Contact & Archive) on April 01, 2009

Over the last couple years, the Angels have found many surprises in their pitching staff. Every year, there seems to be one rising star on the mound for them: Jered Weaver 11-2 2.56 ERA in ’06, John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar winning 19 and 18 games respectively in ’07, and K-Rod racking up the saves while the young Joe Saunders goes 17-7 last year. Pitching has been the Angels’ constant over the last few years, to say the least.

Angels ace John Lackey will start the season on the DL

Photo by SD Dirk used under creative commons license.

It looks like the injury bug has finally caught up to these high-flying Angels however. An ideal rotation for the Halos would be John Lackey, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, Jered Weaver and Kelvim Escobar returning from the grave. The problem with this staff is that Lackey will be opening the season on the DL with Tommy John-esque syndromes, while his buddy Santana has a torn elbow ligament, which also just screams Tommy John. As with all injuries of Lackey’s and Santana’s caliber, they have been given a month to return. A month would be excellent for the Angels, but you may have to expect half a season if not longer with these types of injuries (especially in the case of Ervin Santana, which may lead to Tommy John surgery, and we all know what that means…). I personally think that Lackey returns in mid-May, but doesn’t pitch up to par until the end of the season. And for Santana, I say he returns a little after Lackey, but Santana will still have lingering problems, which leads to Tommy John Surgery.

So now our “dream” rotation has been whittled down to Joe Saunders, Jered Weaver and Kelvim Escobar. Escobar got the injury bug ahead of time and missed last season after shoulder surgery and is expected to return to the team after a month. I have to admit that I have more faith in Escobar returning in the expected time rather than Lackey or Santana. The only problem with Escobar is that, well, he hasn’t pitched a big-league game since October of ’07. Now I’m not saying that Escobar will be totally dysfunctional in his return to the majors. I’m just reminding us all of how difficult it is to start pitching again after missing a year due to a bad shoulder.

April is now looking like Joe Saunders, and Jered Weaver. Joe Saunders seems like a great guy to have on opening day. I can’t really say anything bad about him; the injury bug hasn’t bitten him… yet. Jered Weaver is definitely not a No. 2 man, unless he goes back to his 2006 stats, which doesn’t seem likely with a 7.94 ERA so far this spring.

What does all of this mean though? The Angels can possibly return to that ideal rotation in about a month, and we will forget all of this while the Angels rack up another 100 wins. It could also mean a delayed start to the Angels’ season, which could cost them a division title due to the increased activity of the Oakland A’s.

In the end, I personally have the Angels winning the division because of their strengthened bats (which is leading all other teams this spring) and because of two young pitchers, Dustin Moseley, and Nick Adenhart. Both Moseley and Adenhart have earned a low ERA around 3.10 this spring, and maybe a month on the starting rotation will earn them a permanent spot on the team, and maybe even turn into one of those surprises in the pitching staff.

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