Despite being three and a half games ahead of the competition in the American League West, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have a big problem - their players keep getting hurt, and nobody knows why. Vlad Guerrero and Scot Shields are getting check out for health issues and Chone Figgins has a hamstring made out of velcro. In unrelated stories, Kendry Morales was gored to death in a bullfight and Jose Arredondo had a bomb stuffed in his mouth, was blown up from the inside, and tumbled into a pit of lava where he was then burned to death.
So.
Today's Dugout examines the problems in Los Angeles (or Anaheim?) and using the in-depth baseball analysis Fanhouse has become famous for, blames the problem on the 1990s remake of a 1950s movie. Here's to hoping they come out with another Pirates of the Caribbean movie so we can get Pittsburgh in a few of these.
One of the more interesting sidebars to this weekend's Angels-Red Sox series at Fenway Park will be how the Boston crowds greet Angels outfielder Gary Matthews Jr., who recently tore Sox fans a new one in the LA Times and Boston Globe.
"They're loud, they're drunk, they're obnoxious, it's one of the few places where you hear racial comments . . . it's just different," Matthews said. "They're passionate about their team, they get into games, and for the most part they're knowledgeable about the game. I've learned to enjoy it, but those things are maybe difficult for players who aren't accustomed to it."
Alright, as a card-carrying member of the loud, drunk and obnoxious, I'll give Matthews a mulligan on that. But his credibility took something of a swan dive when he went on to identify Yankees fans as the standard of class in the major leagues.
"It's different from New York," said Matthews. "Yankee fans are passionate about their teams, but they're a little more couth. They have a little more class than Boston fans. At least in New York they appreciate guys who play the game hard and play the game right and they let you know it. In Boston, they just smack you for three straight days. They're just dogging you there the whole time. It's a different place."
Well, that didn't take long. A few unanswered questions and tense moments in the locker room, and Gary Matthews -- he of the $50 million contract and HGH suspicions -- went and pissed off T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times:
Matthews, now occupying Darin Erstad's locker, which is a disgrace when you consider what a stand-up guy Erstad was here, begged Modesti to ask a question after I said, "Do you think you have to earn the fans' respect here after being Mr. HGH" this spring?
...I asked Matthews whether he was familiar with Ryan Leaf, since Matthews reminded me of the punk, and got nothing. I asked him whether the questions were too tough, and got nothing. Now he began to remind me of Mike Garrett.
He told Jenkins, "Growing up in this game helps me deal with things," and so I said, "Didn't growing up in this game help you to deal with tough questions?"
"I've got nothing to say to you; you started off on the wrong foot," said Matthews, who signed a $50-million contract to spend the next five years filling up Page 2. "Maybe next time you will start off on the right foot."
As you can imagine, none of this went over well with Simers; he proceed to rip Matthews and the Angels organization for another 20 paragraphs or so. As much as I appreciate his desire to be every bit the tough journalist his first metro editor knew he could be, the column comes off more petulant and bitter than it does measured and informed.
Don't get me wrong: Simers has the moral high ground here, and has every right to ask the needling questions Matthews doesn't like, just as Matthews has the right to decline questions without taking a verbal beating for it. Still, when you write a column like you're a teenage girl composing a "Burn Book," well, you don't exactly state your case well.
Well, not really. But as we creep ever closer to the start of the season -- only four more hours! -- it's possible the Angels would like to postpone Opening Day for another, oh, four or five weeks.
But that's not all. OF Juan Rivera has a broken left leg and is likely to miss significant time, and third baseman Dallas McPherson is still recovering from back surgery and is on the 60-day DL.
I mean, jeez. Sure, some other teams have injuries -- the continued struggles of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood come to mind immediately for this Cubs fan -- but man, the Angels have really been hit hard. You have to sort of feel bad for them. As the familiar excitement of Opening Day comes rushing back, somewhere Arte Moreno and the Angels front office are sitting and dreading the start of the regular schedule and all of the injuries -- and Gary Matthews nonsense -- it will surely entail.
Apparently, Gary Matthews has been quite the heckler's dream for some time now ... it's just that no one else knew about it:
"Honestly, people doubting my skills or how I can play - this is nothing new for me," the Angels center fielder said. "It's not." ...
"I don't care what somebody says about me. Who cares? I'm so used to it by now," he said. "You gotta understand, from Little League to Pony League to high school, people used to sit in the stands and pop off, talking about my dad (former big-leaguer Gary MatthewsSr.), about me. This is truly nothing new. This is something I'm accustomed to.
"My focus isn't what someone writes or what someone thinks or what someone says. This is literally nothing I haven't dealt with for years. It was, 'Well, we don't know if he'll make it to the major leagues.' Then it was, 'Well, we don't know if he can be an everyday player' or 'Well, he'll never be an All-Star.' It's nothing new. People may not believe it. But it's truly nothing new. ...
"I kind of feel like people want to make it a story. 'Oh, it's just been a Cinderella year out of nowhere,'" he said. "You know, this has been four years in the making. No one sees the hard work you put in, the adjustments that you made. Four years straight in winter ball. They don't see all that. They just see the end result and the numbers in one year. To me, the greatest compliment comes from players around the league saying, 'Gosh, man, I'm glad to see you getting the chance to play. I always thought you were a great player.'
I suppose I can believe Matthews was heckled as a child about his father. Heck, I got heckled about my dad in Little League, (even if it had more to do with my dad's weight than anything else). Still, the verbal lashing Matthews is going to take this year could exceed anything he's dealt with before. It might not reach Barry Bonds syringe-tossing heights ... but it will be significant in its own way. Add that to the fact that Matthews will have to also deal with the added pressure of living up to his contract's implied expectations, and you've got one tough year ahead, no matter who you are.
You may or may not remember Jose Guillen's ugly departure from the Angels a few years ago, but the yarn goes a little something like this: Guillen openly questioned Manager Mike Scioscia's decision to bring in a pinch runner for Guillen, so Scioscia benched Guillen the rest of the season for insubordination and had him traded to the Nationals at the end of the year. Ouch, right?
Well, despite stops at a couple other teams in the meantime, Guillen still holds a grudge:
"Against these guys, I'm gonna tell you straightforward, the anger comes out of me," the Mariners right fielder said Friday. "I want to kill all those guys."
Despite his reputation as an angry guy, Guillen meant "kill" in the competitive, not the literal, sense. Metaphorically, he helped kill the Angels on Friday, hitting a two-run homer in the first inning and going 3-for-4 in Seattle's 10-6 victory.
"I love a lot of those guys I played with over there, but there's some guys I don't really love over there, and I want to show them something," Guillen said. "The decision they made was a stupid one, and it should have been handled different.
"I (wish) we could play them 162 times. That's going to be my motivation. And trust me, that's not good when Jose Guillen gets motivated. I really step up to a really different level."
Hopefully he means "kill" like you say when you want to "kill" your little brother when he wears your favorite pair of socks or something ... and not "kill" like when Tony Soprano decides someone needs to go. Because that would be a bit excessive.
One more thing: shouldn't Jose Guillen be motivated all the time, and not just when he plays the Angels? I mean, if that's when he really steps to a different level, shouldn't he aim for that level all the time?
The defining story of this spring training season has been Gary Matthews' place in the ongoing HGH controversy, as Matthews is the only active player with any stature to implicated the Albany DA's investigation.
Wood is just one of several promising young players in the Angels' infield this spring. Casey Kotchman, 24, likely will open the season at first base after playing 114 games for the Angels over the past three seasons. Howie Kendrick, 23, will be at second base while shortstop Erick Aybar, 23, could make the team as well, albeit at a different position. With some uncertainty still surrounding Gary Matthews Jr., the Angels have been working out Aybar in center field to increase their options.
Ah, to be young in the face of controversy.
What's unfortunate for the Angels is that only one of those potential replacements, Kendrick, has more than 80 career at-bats. Kendrick also looks like the most productive hitter (.285/.314/.416), but other than that, the cupboard looks bare, especially where Aybar (.250/.250/.325) and Kotchman (.227/.298/.334) are concerned. We'll see if any of those guys can pick up their hitting should the Angels need to replace Matthews.
Despite being three and a half games ahead of the competition in the American League West, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have a big problem - their players keep getting hurt, and nobody knows why. Vlad Guerrero and Scot Shields are getting check out for health issues and Chone Figgins has a hamstring made out of velcro. In unrelated stories, Kendry Morales was gored to death in a bullfight and Jose Arredondo had a bomb stuffed in his mouth, was blown up from the inside, and tumbled into a pit of lava where he was then burned to death.
One of the more interesting sidebars to this weekend's Angels-Red Sox series at 
Well, that didn't take long. A few unanswered questions and tense moments in the locker room, and Gary Matthews -- he of the $50 million contract and HGH suspicions -- 
Well, not really. But as we creep ever closer to the start of the season -- only four more hours! -- it's possible the Angels would like to postpone Opening Day for another, oh, four or five weeks. 
Apparently, Gary Matthews has been quite the heckler's dream for some time now ... it's just that no one else knew about it: 
You may or may not remember Jose Guillen's ugly departure from the Angels a few years ago, but the yarn goes a little something like this: Guillen openly questioned Manager Mike Scioscia's decision to bring in a pinch runner for Guillen, so Scioscia benched Guillen the rest of the season for insubordination and had him traded to the Nationals at the end of the year. Ouch, right?
The defining story of this spring training season has been 
