FanHouse Mike Scioscia

During the postseason, Angels manager Mike Scioscia spoke out publicly about the nature of the playoff schedule. And on Wednesday, Scioscia said he expressed the same concerns to commissioner Bud Selig.

"I'm very hopeful and confident that they're going to tighten up that schedule a little bit," Scioscia said on a conference call after being named AL Manager of the Year by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. "I think there's things that the commissioner is going to take to heart and look at."

Selig was initially not available for comment on the matter, but has since said he will try to tighten up the postseason schedule.

As much for keeping the Angels together through the death of pitcher Nick Adenhart and a rash of early-season pitching injuries as for winning the AL West, Mike Scioscia was named American League Manager of the Year by the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Wednesday.

Scioscia earned 15 of 28 first-place votes. Runner-up Ron Gardenhire of the Twins got six first-place votes. Joe Girardi of the Yankees, Don Wakamatsu of the Mariners and Ron Washington of the Rangers all got at least one first-place vote, and no manager was named on all 28 ballots (first, second or third place).

This is Scioscia's second Manager of the Year award. He also won in 2002 as the Angels won the World Series.

This year was different. The Angels lost starters John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar and Ervin Santana in spring training, and then on April 9, Adenhart was killed in a car crash.

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NEW YORK -- The lords of baseball don't realize it, probably because they're old and stubborn and semi-senile. But their showcase event, the World Series, never has seemed more irrelevant in American life. I say it even as the New York Yankees, a world-famous brand name with gaudy stars and Hollywood girlfriends, return for the first time in six years to play the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies in what should be a compelling matchup of monstrous talent and East Coast psychosis.

The problem? Look at the calendar, stupid. The Series is starting later than ever, on Oct. 28, and potentially could finish with a Game 7 in what very possibly would be a frigid, blustery Yankee Stadium on November the friggin' fi-fi-fi-fifth. That means the Boys of Summer are perilously close to becoming the Icecubes of Winter, which is not the smart way to determine a champion in a game of intellectual nuance and patient, incremental drama. Though so many of these postseason contests have been cool to watch, I've also found myself thinking at times, "Can we please finish all this?" instead of sitting back and enjoying the action.

NEW YORK -- The Angels will be haunted all season by their failure to do the little things correctly, such as not treating the baseball as if it were a ripe pumpkin. The Yankees, especially the unrivaled core four, played and then celebrated as if they had been there before, even if it has taken six long years for them to figure the way back.

Therein lies the difference between going home and booking a trip to the World Series, in two quick sentences. On a night when Andy Pettitte's cutter was nearly as biting as it was in 1996 when he pitched one of the greatest playoff games in Yankee history, the Angels tussled through more misplays in a series plagued with them. On a night when Mariano Rivera reached deep for a six-out save, the Angels strangled all opportunities to extend the American League Championship Series into a Game 7. They clumsily ran the bases, made some atrocious errors, stranded more runners. And the manager probably has a move or two he'd like to have back in the Yankees' 5-2 win that crushed the Angels' postseason and jump-started a New York-Philadelphia World Series.

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Playoff Pulse is our morning rundown of the night that was and the night that will be during the MLB postseason.

Looking Forward ...

Monday morning, the number was nine, as in the inning which might give the Angels trouble. Tuesday, it's three, as in the days of rest Yankees Game 4 starter CC Sabathia will have.

Sabathia, you will recall, did this sort of thing plenty last September as he propelled the Brewers to their first playoff appearance since 1982. He was terrific too, going 2-1 with an 0.83 ERA. But that was the NL in a pennant race. This is the AL in the League Championship Series.

NEW YORK -- Of course it would end this way, in such classic, expected fashion. What, you didn't have Jerry Hairston Jr. scoring the winning run for the Yankees in the bottom of the 13th inning, after the Angel infield completely lost its heads? Join the club with millions of other baseball fans who watched Saturday's American League Championship Series melt into Sunday morning, and still aren't sure how and why this astonishing Game 2 concluded as it did.

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There was a lot of talk about the amount of home runs hit over the right field fence in the new Yankee Stadium this season, and it seems that Angels manager Mike Scioscia has heard a great deal of it. He's shuffling his rotation from the order he used during the Division Series to get a lefty starter on the mound for Saturday's Game 2 of the ALCS.

Scioscia said Tuesday that the Angels would start either Scott Kazmir or Joe Saunders with Jered Weaver dropping back one game and starting the first game in Anaheim. The hope of neutralizing Yankees power heading toward the short porch is definitely the prime reason for the move, though there are other considerations that probably played into Scioscia's decision.

While we're not going to know who the New York Yankees will be facing until Tuesday night, we do know that the Boston Red Sox will be taking on the Los Angeles Angels in the ALDS. We also know who will be pitching for both teams as Angels manager Mike Scioscia announced on Sunday that his starting rotation will have John Lackey going in Game 1, to be followed by Jered Weaver in Game 2, Scott Kazmir in Game 3 and Joe Saunders in Game 4.

Terry Francona announced the Red Sox rotation for the series on Sunday as well. Jon Lester will take the ball in Game 1 to face Lackey, while Josh Beckett will start Game 2 followed by the young Clay Bucholz in Game 3. The question is, who will Boston's fourth starter be?

BOSTON -- The Angels left Fenway Park late Thursday night, after avoiding a sweep with a 4-3 victory.

They will be back in three weeks.

With 17 games to play, the Rangers are 6 1/2 games behind the Angels and six behind the Red Sox.

Which means unless Texas figures out a way to score 10 runs a game more than it has recently, or the Yankees blow a six-game lead for the first time in their history, or Detroit runs the table, the Angels and Red Sox will meet in the American League Division Series for the third straight season.

And that means flashbacks for the boys from Orange County.

BOSTON -- As far as Mike Scioscia is concerned, the Angels' late-inning relief situation isn't "unsettled." It is, however, fluid.

Scioscia explained Tuesday that hot rookie setup man Kevin Jepsen will continue to be used, at times, in the ninth inning as well as the eighth, but it sounds as if Scioscia still wants to use struggling closer Brian Fuentes to get the final out.

Just not always the final three.

"I think it's evolved into -- we're going to look at matchups if they're available," Scioscia said. "If there's some matchups we can take advantage of by rolling [Jepsen] over to the ninth inning, we'll look at it. If there aren't we have every confidence that Brian's going to go out there and get it done."