The news that Major League Baseball will start the World Series on a Wednesday this season and has scheduled Game 7 for Nov. 1, didn’t exactly make manager Mike Scioscia stand up and cheer. Scioscia said MLB needs to look at somehow condensing the schedule instead of risking the chance that the game’s championship series is played in some brutally cold Midwest or East Coast city so close to winter.

“We keep pushing that envelope,” Scioscia said. “I hope we can come up with something satisfactory even if it means cutting out six to eight games during the season, or stacking some (day-night) doubleheaders so the gates are still there and the season can be done in a timely manner. Then when you get to the playoffs, you can have the high quality of play you’re looking for.”

With the World Series now starting four days later than usual, it might also mean the first round is set to be expanded from five games to seven. As of now, no announcement on that change has been made.

“Three rounds of seven games, that’s an incredible grind,” Scioscia said. “It will really take a deep club. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot by just adding two games but there’s just the time element. That would be a big step.”

Manager Mike Scioscia said he talked to general manager Bill Stoneman and baseball’s vice president of discipline Bob Watson after Sunday’s game to talk about Hector Carrasco’s ejection.
Carrasco was thrown out after grazing Ian Kinsler’s batting helmet on a 78 mph breaking ball. It came immediately after Gary Matthews Jr. was hit on the rear end in his first at-bat after hitting his second home run of Sunday’s game.
I fully support Major League Baseball with what theyre doing as far as trying to curtail beanballs and bench-clearing brawls, Scioscia said. But I think the calls that are made on the field, there needs to be common sense infused with them. When a guy gets hit with an off speed pitch, I dont care where it hits him. I dont think theres any way you find intent with it.
Scioscia admits nothing can be done about Sunday’s game that ended in a 7-6 Angels defeat, but hopes that by having an open-line of communication with the league, it will established better guidelines for dealing with similar situations in the future.

When the Angels return from this road trip they will play host to the Dodgers for three games and then leave town again, starting a conversation about the schedule. Manager Mike Scioscia gave it a thumbs down.
On the final road trip of the first half, the Angels go to Baltimore then Texas and then back east again to New York. But that isn’t what has Scioscia bothered. He doesn’t care for the two-game series sprinkled throughout and is miffed that during the pennant races of September, the Angels will be playing non-division teams like the Indians, Orioles, White Sox and Devil Rays.
The schedule stinks, Scioscia said. I thought they were making long strides. About four years ago we had a lot of these two-game sets we did away with. The integrity of the schedule was nice the last couple of years because we were in our division early, in the middle and then at the end.
No team could back into the playoffs. You had to earn it the whole way.

A number of players were getting used to their pink bats during batting practice Saturday. They will be using them all across the league Sunday, Mother’s Day, to spark breast cancer awareness.

Angels players who will be using pink lumber today include: Jose Molina, Mike Napoli, Erick Aybar, Orlando Cabrera, Shea Hillenbrand, Robb Quinlan, Vladimir Guerrero and Reggie Willits.

Rangers players include: Hank Blalock, Nelson Cruz, Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, Gerald Laird, Brad Wilkerson, Frank Catalanotto, Chris Stewart and Jerry Hairston Jr.