I like to think I have a firm command of the obvious. To wit, the Orioles, who at 3-16 are four games worse than the next worst team in baseball less than 20 games into the season, aren’t this bad. After all, no team in baseball history has ever finished with a sub .200 winning percentage (the O’s are at .158 entering this week’s three-game series against the Yankees in Baltimore), and the O’s don’t profile as one of the worst teams in baseball history. What’s more, their Pythagorean winning percentage has them at a less compellingly awful .316.

Coming into the season, I thought that this would be the year the rebuilding O’s would slip past the directionless Blue Jays into fourth place, and I still feel that way. The Orioles have a solid collection of good young talent, some of which is still in the process of establishing itself in the major leagues, some of which could arrive in the bigs as the season progresses, and some of which may not even make it until next year or beyond. For that reason, when prescribing off-season strategies for all 30 teams for SI.com back in November, I said the Orioles needed to “avoid trying to buy in too early . . . Once those pieces have established themselves, the O’s can open up the coffers and flesh out the roster, but for now they’ll let [free agent Melvin] Mora go and should stick with inexpensive veteran stop-gaps in the infield . . . while giving the youngsters their opportunities.”

That’s exactly what the O’s did in bringing back the 36-year-old Miguel Tejada to play third base for $6 million, signing deposed Rockies third baseman Garrett Atkins to play first base for $4.5 million, and sticking with Cesar Izturis, on the second year of a two-year, $5 million contract, at shortstop. In a way, wins aren’t really what the O’s are after just yet. General Manager Andy MacPhail has been in enough rodeos to know that there’s no point shooting for a fluky 83-win division title in a division that also contains the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays. Instead, he’s taking his time, trying to get his kids established and sort the prospect wheat out from the remaining chafe. That sort of strategy can lead to exactly the sort of growing pains the O’s are experiencing now, but misfortune can create opportunity.

With the team desperate to get off the floor, manager Dave Trembley has found an excuse to bench the struggling rental Atkins in favor of minor leaguer Rhyne Hughes. Hughes is a 26-year-old rookie and not among the team’s better prospects, but he hit .301/.357/.510 in his Triple-A debut last year, and his time is now if ever. Hughes was the return for sending Gregg Zaun to the Rays in early August of last year, and if Hughes turns out to be a solid major leaguer, that’s essentially free production. If that happens, the decision to effectively leave first base “open” by signing Atkins will have been key to getting something for nothing there. Hughes has gone 4-for-9 with a walk in his first two major league games, one of which was the O’s third win of the season. That’s not terribly meaningful, but it’s better than having starting off with an 0-fer. Hughes is additionally compelling because the O’s top first-base prospect, Brandon Snyder, really isn’t. Snyder hits for average with some doubles, but he doesn’t walk much, doesn’t have significant home run power, and isn’t anything special in the field.

The O’s are much better off at third base, where they can thank another slick late-season deal for Josh Bell, who arrived from the Dodgers for lefty reliever George Sherrill at last year’s trading deadline. Bell is a big, power-hitting third baseman who is making his Triple-A debut this year and could be among the O’s prospects to arrive in the majors mid-year. There’s some concern about Bell’s defense at the hot corner, which makes him a peripheral concern in the first base picture as well, but wherever he plays, he should be a mid-lineup presence for the O’s in the very near future.

Add Bell and possibly Hughes to a lineup that already includes Matt Wieters and the outfield of Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Nolan Reimold, and the O’s have a solid young core that can be complimented through free agency or more deft trades. Before that can happen, however, those youngsters have to get their feet under them in the majors, which only Markakis has done thus far. Wieters and Jones are just 24 and Wieters, off to a solid start this year, has less than a full season of major league experience under his belt. Reimold, who like Markakis is 26 this season, is closer to Hughes than the other four and still needs to prove he’s a major league starter. The flip-side of the Atkins-Hughes situation is that the team’s start has been so bad that is has shortened the leash for lesser prospects such as Reimold. Despite a significant injury which will keep his primary left-field rival Felix Pie out until at least mid-season, Reimold, off to a slow start, has begun losing playing time to the still-older, still-lesser ex-prospect Lou Montanez (though Montanez is in the process of playing himself out of the lineup as well).

On the mound, the O’s have upgraded their brutal 2009 rotation by acquiring veteran Kevin Millwood, on the last year of his contract and thus effectively on another one-year deal, from the Rangers for reliever Chris Ray, who struggled mightily last year in his first year back from Tommy John surgery. More importantly, they’re already getting strong work from lefty Brian Matusz, who was the fourth overall pick in the 2008 draft and is a budding front-of-the-rotation starter and a popular pre-season pick for the American League Rookie of the Year. Millwood and Matusz effectively push Jeremy Guthrie down to the third spot in the rotation. Guthrie is still overextended, even as a number-three, and the final two spots are still filled by pitchers who probably shouldn’t even be in the majors, but that major league mediocrity is again just thin cover for budding prospects including Chris Tillman–who came over with Jones, Sherrill, and reliever Kam Mickolio in the Erik Bedard deal and got a taste of the majors last year at age 21–Jake Arrieta, a 2007 draft pick out of college who could join Tillman in the big league rotation later this year, and Brandon Erbe, who is making his Triple-A debut this year at age 22.

So the O’s have half a lineup, half a rotation, and following a shoulder injury suffered by fragile free agent closer Mike Gonzalez, not much to speak of in the bullpen, but those component parts remain compelling and potential building blocks of a future contender in Baltimore. Right now the Orioles aren’t a good team, but they’re not as bad as they’ve looked in the early going, and are continually getting better. The Orioles should move into fourth place for the first time since 2007, but they’ll still finish with their 13th-straight losing season, yet there remains reason for optimism in Baltimore.

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Sunday wasn’t Joe Girardi’s best day as Yankee manager.

Things seemed to be going the Yankees’ way in the early innings of their rubber game against the Angels in Anaheim on Sunday afternoon. Angels starter Scott Kazmir seemed oddly determined to hit Robinson Cano leading off the second, missing him with a fastball up and in then hitting him in the rear with the next pitch. Kazmir’s next pitch was also a fastball, and Jorge Posada sent it into the new trees beyond the center field fence to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. Marcus Thames followed with a ringing double, and the Yankees were in business.

Unfortunately, Thames was starting for the red-hot Brett Gardner (11-for-24 in the team’s last seven games) instead of the ice-cold (1-for-15 over the last six games) and lefty-challenged Curtis Granderson. So, it was Granderson who followed Thames in the lineup with a second-inning sacrifice bunt. Thames did score on a subsequent groundout by Derek Jeter, but (say it with me) when you play for one run, that’s all you get, and that’s all the Yankees got, letting Kazmir and the Angels off the hook with a manageable 3-0 deficit.

Bobby Abreu got the Angels on the board in the third when he homered off Yankee starter Javier Vazquez for the tenth time in his career (tying Manny Ramirez against Jamie Moyer for the most homers by an active batter off a given pitcher). Fair enough. Abreu clearly owns Vazquez, and though the pitch Abreu hit was a flat slider, Vazquez did start to get his fastball up to 91 mph in the third inning after starting out in the high 80s in the first two frames. In fact, Vazquez struck out the side in the third around Abreu’s solo shot, and he experienced a similar increase in velocity in the middle innings of his last start, a win over the A’s.

Unfortunately for Vazquez, he was no longer facing the punchless A’s in their forgiving ballpark, and in the fourth inning, things fell apart. After Hideki Matsui flied out. Kendry Morales singled, Juan Rivera was grazed on the forearm by a pitch, Howie Kendrick singled Morales home, and Mike Napoli worked a walk to load the bases. That brought up Brandon Wood, the Angels third baseman who has looked lost thus far this season and struck out swinging at a pitch that nearly hit him the previous inning. This time, Wood jumped on Vazquez’s first pitch, a hanging curveball, and hit a sinking liner to left field were Thames, again not Gardner, was playing. Thames broke late and made an awkward and unsuccessful dive toward what proved to be a two-RBI double that gave the Angels the lead. A Maicer Izturis grounder then scored Napoli to make it 5-3 Halos, and Vazquez’s day was over after 78 pitches in just 3 2/3 innings.

Pulling Vazquez there and then was the best decision Joe Girardi made all day, as Boone Logan and Alfredo Aceves combined to hold the Angels into the seventh, and Robinson Cano got the Yankees within one by extracting further revenge on Kazmir via a solo homer to left in the sixth (Cano’s third home run off Kazmir this season in just five official at-bats).

Then, with one out and none on in the seventh and Aceves having thrown just 15 pitches (13 of them strikes), Girardi brought in Damaso Marte to face Bobby Abreu. Marte walked Abreu on five pitches, but with David Robertson warm in the pen, Girardi stuck with Marte against righty Torii Hunter, whom Marte hit in the back knee with a slider. That put two men on for Hideki Matsui, a left-handed hitter whom, as Girardi should well know, has had considerable success against lefty pitching. Though he had yet to get an out, Marte stayed in the game and got a check-swing fielder’s choice for the second out, a lucky break that wasn’t quite enough to save the Yankees in this game.

Matsui’s tapper set up the key at-bat in the game. With men on first and second, two out, and the Yankees still just one run behind, switch-hitter Kendry Morales stepped into the right-handed batters box. Girardi initially called for Marte to intentionally walk Morales with the intention of bringing Robertson in to pitch to righty Juan Rivera with the bases loaded, but after one intentional ball, Girardi popped out of the dugout, seemingly to have Robertson issue the walk himself. Two steps out of the dugout, the Yankee manager froze, perhaps called back by one of his coaches, climbed back down into the dugout, called off the walk, then sent catcher Francisco Cervelli out to the mound, seemingly to stall for more time.

Marte’s next two pitches were balls anyway, and with the count 3-0, Girardi later admitted he thought of putting up four fingers again, but instead he, bench coach Tony Peña, and pitching coach Dave Eiland simply reminded Marte and catcher Francisco Cervelli that Morales would indeed swing on 3-0, implying that there would be no gimme strike. Nonetheless, Marte grooved a fastball, and Morales, true to the Yankee coaching staff’s warning, swung, connecting for a game-breaking three-run homer.

And that was that. Facing relievers Fernando Rodney and Scot Shields in the eighth and ninth innings, respectively, the Yankees managed only a leadoff walk by Mark Teixeira in the eighth that was erased by a Cano double play. The 8-4 loss handed the Yankees their first series loss of the young season and sends them back east with a sister-kissing split on their six-game trip to the west coast.

After the game, Girardi took full blame for his indecision in the seventh, uncharacteristically second-guessing himself for not going with his first instinct (the IBB plus Robertson). However, the amateurishness of that sequence of events overshadowed the other poor decisions he made in this game including starting Thames in the field when Nick Johnson was already on the bench with a stiff back leaving the DH spot open (Posada was the DH after a day off Saturday with Cervelli catching for the second day in a row), playing Granderson over Gardner then calling for a second-inning sac bunt from Granderson, pulling a cruising and efficient Aceves from a one-run game, and sticking with Marte at least two batters too long.

As for Marte, his description of the decisive pitch against Morales, delivered in his broken Dominican rasp, summed up this head-slapper of a loss: “Three ball, no strikes, you know. Waiting for a fastball. I throw the fastball in the middle. He hit.”

Yup.

With Joel Piñeiro going for the Angels this afternoon and Javy Vazquez taking the hill for the Yankees on Sunday, last night’s loss was a tough one for the Yankees to take, but while Kendry Morales’s two-run homer off Joba Chamberlain might have been the decisive blow, the more memorable one came in the third inning when Mark Teixeira, after being hit in the triceps by a pitch, rounded third and absolutely flattened Angels backup catcher Bobby Wilson, who was making his first major league start.

After the game, both managers (both former catchers) said they thought the play was clean, and despite a few more bits of accidental contact and hit batsmen later in the game, there was no jawing between the teams, no real sense of anger or conflict. Despite all of that, I thought it was a dirty play on Teixeira’s part, not only because Wilson had set up behind home, giving Teixeira a clear path to the plate, but because of Teixeira’s behavior in the immediate after math of the collision.

After leveling Wilson, Teixeira stood up and went back to touch home, clearly indicating that his initial target had been the catcher, not the plate. As he then spun back around to head toward the Yankee dugout, his eye caught Wilson sprawled out in the dirt, clearly in pain, but not only didn’t he ask Wilson if he was okay, he didn’t acknowledge him at all and showed no concern after returning to the dugout despite the fact that Wilson had to be helped off the field and carried down the dugout stairs. After the game, Teixeira spoke kindly of Wilson and said he intended to call him to make sure he was okay (Wilson was taken to a local hospital for a CT scan and was diagnosed with a concussion), but in the heat of the moment, I don’t believe Teixeira had any regard for the well being of his opponent.

Was it because of the hit-by-pitch? Because of the virulent booing he’d gotten from his former home fans at Angel Stadium? Was it boiled-over frustration because of his slow start? Probably not, though all likely helped bring out the red-ass in the Yankee first baseman.

We’ve seen that before. Last year, in a game against the Twins, Tex almost got into it with Carlos Gomez because the Twins’ center fielder was crossing first inside the bag and Teixeira was afraid of a potential collision. We’ve also seen him level catchers before. The first thing I thought of when I saw Tex flatten Wilson last night was the play in that wild triple-comeback game against the Rangers in May 2006 in which Jorge Posada was knocked back into the homeplate umpire on a collision at the plate but held on to the ball for the out. The baserunner on that play? Mark Teixiera. From Alex’s recap:

By the end of the next inning, the Yanks would have a one-run lead. But before the home team came to bat, Jorge Posada was involved in what will go down as one of the unforgettable plays of his career, let alone the 2006 Yankee season. With two men out, Hank Blalock laced a double down the left field line. The ball hugged the corner and Melky Cabrera fielded it nervously–he looks unfamiliar and uncomfortable out in left. Mark Teixeira, who had a great night with the stick and seems to have gotten his groove back, raced around second and now charged towards home. Cabrera finally got the ball to Jeter who fired to Posada. The ball skipped home in time, Posada fielded it and then was crunched by Teixeira, who lowered his shoulder and let him have it. It was as hard a collision as I can ever remember Posada being involved with. The blow knocked Posada backwards and into the leg of the home plate umpire. But he hung onto the ball and the place went nuts.

Best I can tell, Mark Teixeira didn’t play football in college (though he’s a big football fan, both college and NFL), but given his ability to lay a hit on an opponent, he should have.

So, Tex put a little extra heat in this series. We’ll see if anything comes of it. For now, the Yankees need to win two unfavorable pitching matchups to avoid their first series loss of the year. (I told you it wouldn’t be easy.)

This afternoon, Andy Pettitte takes on Joel Piñeiro on FOX. Both starters have been outstanding in their first three starts, Pettitte going 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA, Piñeiro going 2-1 with a 1.77, his one loss coming in a quality start in which he got just one run of support from the Angels’ offense. Piñeiro dominated the Yankees for seven innings in the Bronx last week, striking out seven against no walks while allowing just one run on five hits, the key hit being an RBI triple by Nick Swisher. The night before that, Pettitte held the Halos scoreless for six frames, striking out six.

To honor Hideki Matsui, this recap will be presented in 5/7/5 form:

Pre-game
Yankees and Angels
First of three at The Big A
A.J., Ervin, Ks!

Bottom 1st
A.J. Burnett wild
Walks Erick Aybar on pitch
That reached the backstop

AJ then wheels and
Catches Aybar trying steal
Who needs Posada?

Bobby Abreu
Jealous of Matsui-love
Shown by former team?

Abreu doubles
He states “No walls were hurt in
making of this hit”

Next, Torii Hunter . . .
Swisher slides for liner, but
Can’t hold it, two on

Matsui lines out
But then Kendry Morales
Chops a pitch, hang time!

Mark Teixiera waits
And waits . . . and waits for it to
Come down . . . But too late

Abreu scores run
AJ gets Juan Rivera
To fly out to right

Top 2nd
Santana is sharp
Through two frames only one hit
(A-Rod line single)

Bottom 2nd
Maicer Izturis
Brings Yankees only tsuris
Singles past A-Rod

Kendrick named “Howard”?
He flies out to warning track
Burnett not fooling

Who’s Bobby Wilson?
All Angel catchers must have
Six letters in names?

Napoli is one
Mathis is another one
Who cares? Wilson Ks

Tsuris stole second
While Wilson was striking out
But Aybar ends threat

Top 3rd
Swisher pops to short
Gardner lines hit down left field
First double of year!

Jeter mirrors Brett
Dumps double down right field line
Tying game at 1

Johnson K’s, close pitch
Teix hit on elbow (again?)
Takes first base, two on

Alex rips a hit
Past Izturis, a single
Jeter scores, 2-1.

Teix now at second
Cano drives score truck, singles
Teix charges round third

Plate was his to have
Wilson was out front, up line
Teix plowed over him

Wilson groggy, hurt
Was assisted off the field
No weight on left leg

That made it 3-1
Posada popped out to short
Could A.J. hold lead?

Bottom 3rd
Up stepped Abreu
He doubles again, off wall
Hunter lines to third

Alex snares it, throws
Off mark, Hunter runs into
Teix no harm no foul

Now its first and third
Matsui up, AJ gets
A pitcher’s best friend

4-6-3 DP
Run scores, can Burnett escape?
No, Kendry gets plunked

Rivera doubles
High off right-centerfield wall
Tie game now . . . field goals?

Tsuris adds to woes
He doubles, Angels 4-3
Pins in A.J. dolls

Burnett finally
Gets third out of the inning
On Kendrick groundout

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The Yankees hosted the Angels for three games last week, facing the same three pitchers that they will in this weekend’s three-game set against the Halos, and took two of three. Doing that again won’t be as easy. That’s because, after leaving the Bronx with a 3-7 record, the Angels flipped the switch, pealing off five wins against the Blue Jays and Tigers; because Jeff Mathis’s broken wrist has pushed Mike Napoli’s superior bat into the lineup; because Scott Kazmir, who pitches against Javy Vazquez on Sunday, shook off the rust against the Tigers in his last turn; because Joel Piñeiro was as dominant against the Tigers as he was against the Yankees; and because these games will take place in Anaheim, where the Yankees went 3-6 last year.

Tonight erratic stuff-misers A.J. Burnett and Ervin Santana face off. Burnett has gotten better in each of his starts in the early going and is coming off seven impressive shutout innings against Texas on Saturday. Santana lost his first two starts–one of which came in the Bronx and saw him give up five runs on five walks and eight hits (including solo homers by Nick Johnson and Derek Jeter)–but is coming off a sharp, 106-pitch complete game win against Toronto in which he walked none while allowing just one run on another solo homer (by Adam Lind). I’ll be impressed if either can manage a second straight dominant outing tonight.

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Among the finer baseball books to be published this spring is Chris Jaffe’s Evaluating Baseball’s Managers. Full of anecdotes and analysis, it’s an in-depth study of many of the most significant managers in the game’s history. Earlier in the week, Chris answered a number of questions about the book, including his thoughts on some of the most important managers to wear the pinstripes.

Markusen: Chris, in putting this book together, it’s obvious that you’ve put in an exhaustive amount of research and time. How much, if at all, were you influenced by the previous books on managers done by Bill James and Leonard Koppett?

Jaffe: Both were very helpful. Neither was the main inspiration, but both helped.  Koppett gave me a sense of how the position evolved over time. Early in his book, he talks of New York’s 1876 National League manager Bill Cammeyer. He owned the team and invented the baseball stadium.  Nowadays, he’d never be manager, but then the position was different.

The James book probably helped a bit more. (Actually, Bill James gets mentioned more times than any non-manager in the book. I suppose that’s not too surprising given that it’s a Sabermetric work).

The big inspiration from the James book was a little 2-3 page section at the end where he noted how often particular managers’ teams led the league (or came in last) in various categories.  It let you know whose teams relied the most on power, or complete game pitching, or whatever. James said the list came in handy when discussing various managers.

I liked the idea and thought it could be taken further.  I thought rather than just look at how often someone ranked first or last, note how often they came in first, second, third … .all the way down to last, average it out, adjust for league size (because coming 6th in an 8 team league is different from sixth in a 16-team league), and get a better sense of where managers stand in various ways.

That became the Tendencies Database, which is the main tool I used to look at individual managers.

Markusen: Based on the research you did for the book, who emerges as the greatest manager in the history of the Yankees? Did this differ from any preconceived opinions you might have had?

Jaffe: Joe McCarthy kicked so much butt he had to wear special shoes.  I knew going in he was terrific so it didn’t go against any preconceived opinions, but there you go.

Stengel is more remembered because he was better with the media, came in the early TV era (when the Baby Boomers can remember him), and last, but certainly not least, won five straight titles.  That said, McCarthy’s post season accomplishments were in their own way even more impressive than Stengel’s.  In his nine World Series, McCarthy’s teams not only won eight world titles, but they won 29 out of 38 games.  A 29-9 record is remarkable if it’s a midseason run, but it’s almost impossible to do that good when facing pennant winning teams in rival leagues.  Stengel’s Yanks won a bunch of closely fought World Series, but McCarthy went 28-5 in his eight triumphant Octobers.  They never even saw a Game Seven.  Heck, they only had one Game Six.  Stonewall Jackson once said an army conditioned to victory will become invincible.  That’s what happened to those Yankees.

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Wednesday night, Phil Hughes held the first 22 batters he faced hitless. Thursday afternooon, CC Sabathia gave up a hit to the fourth man he faced. That wouldn’t have been particularly notable if that hit hadn’t been a three-run homer by A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki that effectively won the game for the A’s.

Sabathia couldn’t locate his fastball in the first inning on Wednesday, and after walking two of the first three men he faced, he was supposed to throw a fastball down and away to start off Suzuki, who had hit two home runs off Sabathia prior to yesterday and also homered of Javy Vazquez on Tuesday night. Instead, he grooved a 93 mile-per-hour pitch on the inside half of the plate (see photo). After Suzuki’s blast, Sabathia worked in more changeups and managed to settle down, facing the minimum until giving up a cheap run in the fourth on a walk, an throwing error by Robinson Cano on a would-be double-play pivot (the Yankees’ first error since the second game of the season), an infield single, and a sac fly. Sabathia got out of that inning when Francisco Cervelli picked Kevin Kouzmanoff off second base, then again faced the minimum until the eighth thanks to an around-the-horn triple play started by Alex Rodriguez in the sixth (more on that below the fold).

Down 4-0, the Yankees cut the deficit against A’s lefty Dallas Braden with solo homers by Marcus Thames (who has successfully shrugged off his awful spring training) and Mark Teixeira, but otherwise managed little more than a series of long outs that were contained by the spacious Oakland Coliseum. No other Yankee reached third base in the game against Braden (who didn’t take kindly to Alex Rodriguez crossing the mound after making an out in the top of the sixth), set-up man Brad Ziegler, or closer Andrew Bailey.

The 4-2 final includes the Yankees’ lowest run tally of the young season. Meanwhile, Sabathia, after tallying a six-inning complete game in a rain-shortened win his last time out, again went a shortened distance, this time to an eight-inning complete game loss, needing just 97 pitches to do so despite six walks and five strikeouts.

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So Phil Hughes took a no-hitter into the eighth inning last night. How can this afternoon’s starter match that? Well, CC Sabathia has already taken a no-no into the eighth this season, getting two outs further than Hughes did last night, so he’ll have to come up with a new trick. Completing the Yankees second straight sweep and extending their winning streak to seven games would be sufficient.

CC needed just 73 pitches to get through six innings while striking out nine Rangers (and walking none) his last time out, and over his last two starts he’s allowed just one run on four hits and two walks while striking out 14 in 13 2/3 innings. He’ll face crafty 26-year-old lefty Dallas Braden this afternoon. Braden has shown improvement in each of his last two big-league campaigns and has been sharp in the early going, starting 2010 with three quality starts, all leading to Oakland wins. He faced the Yankees just once last year and was torched in the Bronx (seven runs on ten hits and six walks in 5 2/3 IP). A week later, an infected rash on his foot ended his season.

Nick Swisher returns to the lineup this afternoon while Curtis Granderson yeilds to Marcus Thames against the lefty Braden. Brett Gardner is in center. Francisco Cervelli catches the day game after the night game. After Cano, the lineup is Swisher, Thames, Cervelli, Gardner.

I remember watching Phil Hughes’ great, painfully cut-short start against Texas three years ago*, and thinking it was the most depressing 10-1 Yankees win I’d ever seen. Last night’s game was not nearly such a bummer: Hughes pitched the best game of his career, took his no-hitter into the eighth and was finally derailed by a comebacker bouncing off his glove, not by a key muscle making an unhappy popping noise. The Yankees won 3-1, and the Phenom/Phranchise nicknames would seem to be back in business.

Hughes walked Daric Barton on four pitches in the first inning, but put away the next 20 A’s he faced, 10 by strikeout, a career high. He got himself all the way into the eight inning with no hits and barely any drama – none of those dazzling close plays that Sabathia got in his no-hit innings of a few weeks ago. Everything was moving in exactly the way you’d want it to move, and while I don’t think his fastball topped 92 or 93 mph, that’s evidently plenty fast enough.

The Yankees scraped a pair of runs together in the fourth, when Alex Rodriguez tripled, and made it look like such a good idea that Robinson Cano decided to do the same immediately afterwards, later scoring on Posada’s groundout. Meanwhile, Hughes was being ostentatiously ignored in the dugout until the eighth, where with his pitch count still quite low and mostly made of strikes, he promptly allowed a hit to Eric Chavez. Well, kind of – the ball hit off Hughes’ arm and glove, and while he wasn’t hurt (PHEW… hey, can that be Hughes’ new nickname?), he also couldn’t find the ball for a few very long seconds. He regained his composure but as he reached 100 pitches with several runners on base, Girardi brought in Joba Chamberlain; one run scored before the Yanks could turn the game over to Mariano, who made things slightly more interesting that was strictly necessary in the ninth but, as usual, remained in control.

Pre-Mo, the Yankees got an ultimately unneeded but reassuring insurance run when Brett Gardner dunked a single into left to score Curtis Granderson (who, in case you were wondering, has been adjusting just fine to NYC off the field, too). Ken Singleton had just been saying, as Gardner faced a 3-1 count, “one more ball out of the zone and Jeter will come to the plate,” and I was thinking, hey, there is a chance Gardner will actually get a hit, you know. (I watched the Mets-Cubs game earlier in the evening and let me tell you, there is nothing like it to make you appreciate the Yankees’ lineup. The Cubs happened to win tonight with plenty of offense, but then they were facing Oliver Perez, and Lou Piniella still spent most of the game looking like he was watching someone strangle a koala… or, perhaps, like he would like to strangle a koala himself).

Anyway, as much as we all wanted to see a little history, it seems ridiculous to call this game disappointing. Hughes’ no-hitter interruptus didn’t bother me much, because it was just beautiful to see him pitch so well… and then to be available again in five days.

Now excuse while I go knock on all the wood within a mile radius.

—

*Holy crap, was that really three years ago?

Tonight the Yankees look to go five-for-five in series in the young season and extend their current five-game winning streak to six. If that should happen thanks to another solid start from Phil Hughes, the latter would be as encouraging as the former. Hughes looked sharp early in his regular season debut against the Angels last Thursday. Though he ultimately walked five and ran up his pitch count in turn, limiting himself to five innings, he also held the Halos to two runs on three hits while striking out six. For all of my grousing about Joba Chamberlain being wasted in the bullpen, Hughes is every bit as important to the future of the Yankee rotation (and thus the Yankees’ future) and his time is now. His strong debut was more than just the cherry on top of the Yankees’ hot start.

Opposing Hughes will be Ben Sheets, who despite being a veteran All-Star, has something to prove himself coming off a season lost to elbow surgery and ill-timed free agency. After three starts, Sheets has a 2.65 ERA, but has walked two more than he’s struck out and hasn’t pitched past the sixth inning, leaving room for the A’s bullpen to blow his first two games. It’s a compelling matchup of talented hard-throwing right-handers at very different stages of their careers.

Randy Winn will start in right field tonight as Nick Swisher gets a curiously-timed day off after returning to his old haunt and breaking an extended 0-fer. Maybe he was proving it all night, too.

Prior to last night’s game, Nick Johnson had walked in slightly better than one of every four plate appearances this season.  With 14 walks in his first 12 games, he was on a pace which would eclipse the all-time franchise record of 170 by Babe Ruth in 1923.

Now of course, Nick is a DL stint just waiting to happen, so that all-time mark is highly unlikely.  But he could more reasonably eclipse the more recent high-water mark of Jason Giambi, who got a free pass 129 times in 2003.

In the DH era, there have been only ten occurrences of a Yankee drawing 100 or more walks in a season, and Giambi has four of them.

Johnson’s .158 batting average (prior to last night’s game) will of course come back to more-normal levels, as he is a career .271 hitter.  Since 1990, there have been 78 occurrences of an American League batting title qualifier amassing 100 or more walks, and the median batting average of that group is .285, with a range of .223 (Mickey Tettleton in 1990) to .363 (John Olerud in 1993).

The A’s team the Yankees will face over the next three days is currently in first place in the American League West. That doesn’t mean they’re any good.  The A’s are 9-5, with six of those wins having come at home. Thus far they have gone 4-3 against the Mariners, 3-1 against the Orioles, and taken two of three from the Angels. That’s a solid intra-division showing, but the Mariners are missing Cliff Lee, and one of the A’s wins against the Halos came against replacement starter Matt Palmer.I’d say the A’s are headed for a fall, but they haven’t really climbed to any great height just yet. The Angels and Rangers, the real cream of their division, are just two games behind them in the standings, and with the Yankees coming to town, things are about to get serious.

The A’s have some pitching. Justin Duchscherer and Ben Sheets are currently healthy. Twenty-two-year-old lefty Brett Anderson is an emerging ace. Twenty-six-year-old lefty Dallas Braden, who will face CC Sabathia on Thursday, is emerging as a nice, team-controlled mid-rotation innings eater, and tonight’s starter, 24-year-old lefty Gio Gonzalez, is a prospect with good stuff, a nice high-upside option for the fifth spot. That rotation has posted a 2.70 ERA thus far, second only to the Cardinals in the majors, and home-grown arms such as Trevor Cahill (currently rehabbing an injury to his non-throwing shoulder) and Rutherford, New Jersey’s Vin Mazzaro provide depth with major league experience at Triple-A. The A’s bullpen, headed by 2009 Rookie of the Year closer Andrew Bailey, has been solid as well and should continue to be so.

That the A’s have been the stingiest team in the American League in the early going is particularly impressive given that they’re nothing special on defense. That their pitching has carried them to the top of their division is similarly impressive given that they can’t hit. In terms of runs scored per game, the A’s have been roughly league average in the early going, but their component performances, especially their .362 team slugging percentage (third worst in the AL and sixth-worst in baseball), are unimpressive. There is worse to come.

Here’s a question: who is the A’s best hitter? Is it Daric Barton, the first base prospect who finally seems to be clicking? Barton is an on-base machine, but he doesn’t have much power. His ceiling seems to be something like a healthy Nick Johnson. Is that their best hitter? Is it Kevin Kouzmanoff, the power-hitting third baseman acquired from the Padres? The right-handed Kouzmanoff has finally escaped Petco Park only to find himself playing his home games in a stadium that had a 77 park factor for right-handed home runs over the past three years per The Bill James Handbook (Petco’s was 86). Kouzmanoff has hit .284/.328/.477 on the road in his career. Is he their best hitter? Is it Eric Chavez, the man once tagged as the A’s franchise player whose bad back limited him to 31 games over the past two years and who, having returned as a designated hitter, has yet to start hitting again? Chavez has hit .249/.323/.439 over the last six seasons. Is he their best hitter? Their third-place hitter is Ryan Sweeney, a righty-swinging outfielder with a career .286/.343/.388 line in 1,109 plate appearances in the major leagues. Is he their best hitter?

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So, I thought I’d do a thing where, every so often at the end of a home stand or road trip, I’d pop in to take a look at how things are going for the Yankees. Call it “Howzit Goin’?,” make it a casual, quick-hit look at the team. Figured it would give me an opportunity to address what’s going right and wrong for the Bombers at that particular point in time. So here’s my first attempt, but I have a problem: everything’s going right.

What’s there to say? The Yankees have won their first four series of the season for the first time since 1926, doing it against their two primary division rivals (believed to be the best teams in the league if not the majors other than the Yankees themselves), as well as my pick to repeat as the AL West champs and one of their primary rivals. They open a new road trip tonight on a four-game winning streak having gone 5-1 on their just-completed homestand and 9-2 since their Opening Day loss to the Red Sox in Boston. Overall they’re 9-3, a record better than all but one team in the American League, that being the 10-3 Tampa Bay Rays, whom the Yankees took two of three from in Tampa the weekend before last.

The Yankees’ three losses break down this way: On Opening Day in Boston, they took and early 5-1 lead on the Red Sox, but CC Sabathia and the bullpen gave the lead back and then some, resulting in a 9-7 loss. In their first game in Tampa, the Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the top of the fourth, but Javier Vazquez, making his regular season debut, fell apart immediately after, giving up eight runs in an eventual 9-3 loss. In Vazquez’s next start, against the Angels in the Bronx, he again took a loss, but in that game, the Yankee offense was stymied by Joel Piñeiro and was unable to give Vazquez a lead. Trailing 2-1 after five, Vazquez gave up two more runs in the top of the sixth which sealed the Angels’ eventual 5-3 win (note that two of those three Yankee runs came against the Angel bullpen).

That last loss was the only one that could really be pinned on the offense, which leads the league with 5.75 runs scored per game and has yet to score fewer than three runs a single game this season. John Lackey actually had the best starting performance against the Yankees in the early going, holding them scoreless for six innings, but Andy Pettitte kept the Red Sox in check in that game and Lackey’s bullpen quickly blew his slim one-run lead and ultimately the game in ten innings (the Yankees’ only extra-inning game thus far). In addition to Piñeiro and Lackey, the Rays’ David Price, who beat Vazquez in his first start, was impressive, but did give up both an early lead and three runs on seven hits and three walks in total.

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Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

If you’ve been married for any length of time, you know you have to choose your battles.  You rent the romantic comedy instead of the Tarantino flick, you hang the picture in the hallway during halftime of the football game, and you smile when she asks to share your dessert.  You have to draw the line somewhere, though, and it seems like most of us take our stand with the comfort items.  It could be a beat up chair, a worn pair of jeans, or an old pair of shoes.

Andy Pettitte is an old pair of shoes.  He’s been doing this so long that it’s expected and surprising all at the same time.  Sure, the stubble on the jaw is a gun-metal grey now, and his three-year business trip to Houston kind of puts an asterisk on Michael Kay’s constant references to the Core Four, but this is still Andy Pettitte.  So when he rattled off eight effective innings on Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, Pettitte looked just like the guy we saw back in 2009 or 2003 or 1996.

He allowed two runs in the third inning on a single, a sacrifice, a double, and another single, but he was coldly effective the rest of the way.  He walked Ryan Garko with one out in the fourth, then settled in to retire the next twelve Texas hitters, highlighted by the sixth and seventh innings when he needed only fifteen pitches total to record the six outs.

On the other side of the efficiency coin was Texas starter Rich Harden.  Harden’s been on my fantasy team for the past couple seasons, so I’ve seen this game about a thousand times.  His stuff is great, far better than Pettitte’s, so he was able to strike out five hitters in only three and two-thirds innings, but the the problem was that he also gave up six walks and five base hits.  The strikeouts and walks would naturally lead to a high pitch count, but here’s a hidden stat that doomed Harden: Yankee hitters fouled off 22 of his pitches; Ranger batters managed only three foul balls during Pettitte’s eight innings.

Meanwhile, the Yankees cobbled together five runs with a sacrifice fly here, a bloop single there, and a couple of home runs, only one of which is interesting enough to talk about here.  The struggling Mark Teixeira hit his first home run of the season, and as he rounded the bases in his usual high-stepping trot, looking like a man running through three feet of snow, I wondered if he might finally be coming around.  I know we all know that Teixeira starts slowly, but just as a reminder, I looked it up.  Take a look at where he was on the morning of April 19th in each the past several years.  (And to make you feel better, I’ve included his finishing slash stats as well.)

2003: .149/.216/.298 — .259/.331/.480
2004: Injured in April — .281/.370/.560
2005: .224/.308/.397 — .301/.379/.575
2006: .321/.410/.528 — .282/.371/.514
2007: .204/.339/.224 — .306/.400/.563
2008: .203/.282/.375 — .308/.410/.552
2009: .194/.333/.548 — .292/.383/.565
2010: .114/.291/.205 — ????/????/????

The numbers don’t lie.  Sooner or later, he’ll be fine.  The hitters say that sometimes one swing is all it takes to find what’s been missing; here’s hoping that Big Tex has found it.  But back to our game…

Everything ended when another pair of comfortable shoes, Mariano Rivera, trotted in from the dugout and closed things out with a spotless ninth inning. Yankees 5, Rangers 2.  As noted everywhere, the Yanks have won their first four series, the first time that’s happened since 1926, and all is happy in the Bronx.

By the end of his two-inning stint in the Bronx, Scott Feldman must have felt like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. The Texas Rangers’ ace received first-hand evidence of the Yankees’ ability to grind through opposition starting pitchers like no other ballclub. Feldman, a sinkerballing right-hander who usually has a knack for throwing strikes, needed 61 pitches to work through the first two innings of a matinee at Yankee Stadium. Feldman escaped the first inning unscathed, but allowed two runs in the second, as the Yankees launched a 7-3 win over the Rangers.

The Yankees did not exactly crush the ball during the rally–they mixed in two infield hits with a walk–but their ability to foul off pitches and prolong at-bats clearly frustrated Feldman. Feldman also hurt himself by failing to throw out Brett “The Jet” Gardner on a softly tapped grounder down the first base line. With two outs and the bases loaded, Nick “The Stick” Johnson waited out Feldman, drawing a walk on a 3-and-2 count to score the first run of the game. The slumping Mark Teixeira followed up by hitting a ground ball into the second base hole. Joaquin Arias made a diving stop on the outfield grass, but was unable to complete the play with a throw to first. Tex’s relatively soft infield single gave the Yankees an early 2-0 cushion.

The Yankees used another infield single to add to their lead in the third inning. After Curtis Granderson’s opposite-field double knocked Feldman from the game and pushed Jorge Posada to third, Gardner slapped a ball to the left side of the infield and easily beat Elvis Andrus’ throw to first base. (Fast as a flash bulb, Gardner would finish the game with three infield hits.) The Yankees then pulled a page out of the “Billy Ball” playbook by having Gardner attempt to steal second with the idea of drawing a throw from Rangers catcher Taylor Teagarden. Opting to throw through, Teagarden badly short-hopped Joaquin Arias, as Gardner stopped midway between the bases before continuing to second base. With the ball trickling into the outfield, Granderson scored easily from third, giving the Yankees a 4-0 lead.

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As long as I can remember, the line on the Rangers was always that they’d be dangerous if they could ever find some pitching. Scoring runs in the Texas heat was no major challenge (though scoring runs on the road often was), it was preventing them that was the trick. Well, last year the Rangers were the fourth stingiest team in the junior circut, but it wasn’t so much that they found some pitchers (though they have several talented young arms in development) but that they found some fielders.

The Rangers were dead last in the majors in defensive efficiency in 2008, but climbed all the way to third in the AL (seventh overall) in 2009 thanks in large part to the arrival of defense-first shortstop prospect Elvis Andrus and late-blooming all-around right-field talent Nelson Cruz, and massive improvement in the field by star second baseman Ian Kinsler (who currently on the DL with a sprained ankle). This year, they’re mixing in speedy center fielder Julio Borbon, which has the added advantage of pushing Josh Hamilton to left field, thus giving the Rangers an above-average defender in all three pastures. Chris Davis, a repurposed third baseman, is also capable of athletic play at first base and could soon be pushed by top prospect Justin Smoak, who is considered even better afield, and though Michael Young has long been a liability in the field (his 2008 Gold Glove was completely undeserved), his having a year of experience at third base under his belt can only help his play at the hot corner. They’ve done it quietly, but the Rangers have added their names to the rapidly expanding list of American League teams that have greatly improved themselves by using the rising tide of their defense to lift their pitching boats.

That’s good, because for all of the pitching talent the Rangers have in their system, they’re still a season or two away from reaping their fruits. Top prospects Derek Holland and Neftali Feliz reached the majors last year, but lefty Holland has opened 2010 back in Triple-A, and fireballing Feliz, a starting prospect, is still biding his time in the bullpen (though two early blown saves by Frank Francisco have already moved him into the closer’s job). The next arm on the list, Venezuelan lefty Martin Perez, is a 19-year-old trying to find his feet in Double-A.

In the meantime, with Holland back in the minors, Feliz in the pen, and middling home grown arms such as Tommy Hunter and Eric Hurley on the disabled list, the major league rotation continues to be patchwork. Scott Feldman and Matt Harrision (the latter of whom came over from the Braves in the Mark Teixeira trade along with Feliz, Andrus, and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who is also on the DL) are in their proper spots, but the Rangers had to turn to free agency, Japan, and their own bullpen to fill the other three.

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In a strange way, the defensive foibles of Jorge Posada have made me more bullish on Jesus Montero’s future as a catcher. At one time, I thought that Montero would serve strictly as a first baseman-DH, but now I believe that he may be able to catch–at least for the first three or four seasons of his major league career. Posada’s catching has degraded so badly over the last five years, but that hasn’t stopped the Yankees from winning a world championship along the way. As bad as Posada has become in blocking balls in the dirt, or even catching routine balls and strikes, could Montero be any worse?

I haven’t seen Montero catch at the minor league level, but most of the scouting reports indicate that he has improved from an initial grade of “poor” to merely “below average,” while developing better mechanics to augment a naturally strong throwing arm. That kind of assessment indicates to me that is actually a little bit better than Posada right now. Other than his knowledge of the Yankee pitching staff and American League hitters, Posada really has no defensive strengths. He doesn’t move well, doesn’t have soft hands, and doesn’t block the plate well (he has never done that well). Even his once powerful throwing arm has weakened considerably since shoulder surgery in 2008. If Montero can hit at least as well as Posada–and some assessments of him indicate that he is one of the top five hitting prospects in the game–then the Yankees could live with him as their No. 1 catcher for a few seasons. In the long term, the king-sized Montero may have to move somewhere else simply because he may outgrow the catching position, but that transition may be able to wait until he reaches his mid-twenties.

So what about the immediate future? The Yankees would like to keep Montero at Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre for the entire season, and then bring him to the Bronx for a cameo in September. That schedule would put Montero on track to arrive in New York fulltime in 2011. I could see the Yankees using a three-headed catching monster next season–featuring Posada, Montero, and Francisco Cervelli–before turning over the No. 1 job to Montero in 2012. By that time, Posada’s four-year contract will have expired, making the timing ideal to start the clock on his five-year waiting period for Hall of Fame eligibility. The Yankees could then move prospect Austin Romine into Posada’s roster slot, giving the Bombers three talented and youthful catchers to take them through to the next decade…

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Banterites continue to marvel/giggle from afar at the plight of Big Papi, who has continued his slide from feared slugger to possibly benched DH by K’ing 12 times in his first 25 plate appearances (23 ABs) this season.

It brings to mind the Yanks’ history of famed, and in some case surprising, whiffers.

Mike Pagliraulo, who struck out once every 5.5 plate appearances in his career, holds the franchise record for most consecutive game starts from the beginning of the season with at least one K, with 9 in 1988.  Ortiz’s worst such streak was the first four games of 1999, when he was still with the Twins.

None other than Alex Rodriguez has the team record for most consecutive starts with at least one strikeout, with 15 in July/August of 2005.  Despite this, A-Rod DID hit .276/.377/.603 during the streak, with 6 homers and 12 ribbies.  Ortiz compiled a ten-game streak during 2006.  If you are wondering, Mickey Mantle’s longest such streak was 11 in 1952.  Reggie Jackson had a 17-game streak in ’82, but he was already with the Angels by then.

Big Papi has K’ed at least twice in his last five starts.  Six different Yankees have compiled streaks of five straight two-K starts, most recently Tony Clark in 2004.

Ortiz’s high-water mark in terms of season’s strikeouts was last year’s 134, when he put up a line of .238/.332/.462.  He also struck out 133 times in 2004, but that year he hit .301/.380/.603.  Alfonso Soriano holds the Yankee season strikeout record with 157 in 2002.

Photo courtesy of the NY Yankees

The Yankees got their shiny new rings today, and they were just as subtle and understated as you might expect. But if the swelling music and the giant hunks of ice were not exactly humble, the ring ceremony itself still managed to be lovely – because of the presence of Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra, the glee of the crowd, and the obvious joy on the players’ faces as they jogged out to collect – and a perfect prelude to a 7-5 win.

The highlight was the reception for Hideki Matsui, now the Los Angeles Godzilla of Anaheim, who was given a ring, a huge ovation from the fans, and hugs on the field from all his teammates. I can hardly wait for the inevitable squawking about the horrors of fraternizing with the “enemy.” This may be the most amicable player-team divorce I can recall, and it was nice to see the uber-professional Matsui reap the benefits of that. Even the many Yankee-haters of my acquaintance find it hard to work up any bile for the guy.

(Less fuss was made over current Padre Jerry Hairston Jr’s presence, but I like that he flew all night to be in the Bronx for this moment – without even asking permission, because he was afraid someone might say no. It’s always nice to get a sense that the players care as much or more than the fans; it helps us feel less silly).

As for the game itself, it was about as low-stress as Yankees-Angels games ever are. Is there any Major League player we know better, at this point, than Andy Pettitte? How many times over the last few years have I tried to find a new way to describe a start like this? He got himself into trouble and then he got out of it; he was not dominant or overwhelming, but he was enough. Pettitte’s demeanor and persona do not seem to fit the word “crafty” (more like “aw shucks”), but he has gradually turned into one of those lefties; I wouldn’t necessarily say he strikes me as a deep thinker, but he knows what the hell — “the heck”, he might say — he’s doing. Today’s final line was six innings pitched and no runs allowed, despite five hits and three walks, aided by six strikeouts.

The offense was provided by Nick Johnson and Derek Jeter, who hit solo homers early on, and the Yankees tacked on gradually via a slew of infield singles, walks, and doubles, which never quite coalesced into a huge inning but came out to the same thing in the end. It was a good homecoming for Johnson, who came through in several key moments (and managed not to lose any limbs), as did Cano, an ultra-patient Swisher, and the usual suspects – Jeter, Posada, and of course Mariano Rivera, who saved Chan Ho Park and David Robertson from themselves with his usual easy flair.

So far, so good.

Coverage of the Angels this past offseason focused on the fact that, a year after they let Francisco Rodriguez depart as a free agent, four more of their key players were eligible to do the same. It was generally believed that the Angels had to resign at least two of them to maintain their hold on the American League West, but after quickly re-upping Bobby Abreu for two years at an annual salary of $9 million, the Angels watched as Chone Figgins, John Lackey, and Vladimir Guerrero, not to mention valuable veteran set-up lefty Darren Oliver, all signed elsewhere.

Here’s the thing. I still think the Angels are going to repeat as division champions this year. For one thing, though they didn’t resign Guerrero, they did sign Hideki Matsui for a mere $6 million, and to my eyes, that’s an upgrade. Matsui’s actually eight months older than Guerrero, and both have a lot of mileage on their bodies and have struggled with injuries in recent years, but Guerrero, who signed for $6.5 million plus an option with division rival Texas, just looked used-up last year, playing in just 100 games and failing to reach 20 homers or walks. After leading the league in intentional walks in each of the previous four years, Guerrero was passed intentionally just three times in 2009, damning evidence that the Impaler’s blade has dulled significantly.

Matsui, meanwhile, arrives in L.A. coming off one of his best seasons. Both seem capable of replicating Matsui’s career line of .292/.370/.483 if healthy, but I think Guerrero will need the help of his new park to get there, while Matsui can do it on his own. The catch is that Mike Scioscia has already given Matsui a start in left field. If he continues to do that every so often, the chances of Matsui staying healthy are significantly reduced (not to mention the effect of his two bad knees on the Angels’ defense).

As for Lackey, the Angels replaced him last July when they acquired Scott Kazmir from the Rays for three prospects including Sean Rodriguez. Kazmir is ably filling Lackey’s shoes by starting the season on the disabled list, which Lackey did each of the last two seasons. When he returns, Kazmir will give the Halos a young, hard-throwing lefty to complete a five-deep rotation that also includes Jered Weaver, lefty Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, and free agent addition Joel Pineiro, the last of whom is the only of the five Angels starters to have reached his thirties. None of those guys is an ace, but Weaver and Kazmir can be number-twos, Saunders and the groundballing Pineiro slot in well at three and four, and the erratic Santana has front-end potential as evidenced by his strong 2008 campaign which earned him his first All-Star selection and even a few Cy Young votes. Hidden in Santana’s 2009 numbers is the 3.18 ERA he posted over his last 11 starts, much in the same way that Kazmir’s unimpressive 2009 figures mask a strong second half in which he posted a 3.27 ERA and a 1.73 mark after becoming an Angel.

The depth of that rotation is a large part of the reason that I believe the Angels are going to repeat, but their lineup is still solid as well. Only the Yankees scored more runs than the Angels in 2009, and with Matsui replacing Guerrero, the only real change is the loss of Figgins. It remains to be seen if Erick Aybar will be an out machine while taking Figgins’ place atop the order, but things are solid behind him, with Abreu getting on base in the two-hole and Torii Hunter, Matsui, and Kendry Morales lining up to drive him in. If Aybar can hit for enough average to prop up his OBP, and Brandon Wood, who replaces Figgins at third base and opens the season batting eighth, can deliver on his considerable power potential (the 25-year-old slugged .541 in the minors and averaged just shy of 29 homers a year over his last five minor league seasons), the Angels should actually be better without Figgins than they were with him. Those are big “if”s, of course, but the Angels have room for error given their production last year.

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