Everyone is going to bury the Angels, but all they really need to do is fire hitting coach Mickey Hatcher. Hatcher has never been held accountable for a track record that is average, at best. Players like Pujols and Wells come in and struggle, while players like Napoli have moved on and thrived. Bringing in a hitting coach who the players don't see as a flaming dumbass would do wonders for the team.
You may well be right, much to Scioscia's dismay Hatcher was blown out by the Halo's new GM.
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ANAHEIM—The machine that was supposed to be the Los Angeles Angels has a major malfunction.
One of its designers realized this over the last who-knows-how-long. After six weeks of crossing his fingers each day hoping it would start, like a man praying his bucket of a car gets him to work every morning, the designer has started to rebuild this shiny, sputtering contraption.
That decision was met with much displeasure by one of the other designers, the lead designer over the previous 12 seasons.
First-year general manager Jerry Dipoto made it clear who is in charge when he decided to fire hitting coach Mickey Hatcher on Tuesday night. Hatcher is one of longtime manager Mike Scioscia’s closest friends and was one of his most trusted coaches.
Dipoto’s reasoning is sound. The Angels, expected to be a World Series contender after spending heavily on free agents this offseason, are off to a brutal start. They started Wednesday seven games behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the American League West, and their malnourished offense is the major reason for that.
Entering Wednesday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, the Angels had been shut out a league-leading eight times and are 12th out of 14 AL teams in runs scored (134) and OBP (.301), 11th in slugging (.379) and OPS (.680) and are 1-17 when they score three or fewer runs.
Suddenly Pujos is hitting home runs and already has 3 hits tonight.
Stay tuned.
http://m.sportingnew...d-albert-pujols
