The Angels will make it official Wednesday and announce that the 2010 All-Star Game will be played at Angel Stadium. Commissioner Bud Selig will be on hand for the 12:30 p.m. anouncement, along with owner Arte Moreno and Angels mayor Curt Pringle. It will be the third All-Star Game played in Anaheim and the first since 1989, which was made famous by Bo Jackson’s massive home-run blast to center field.
Not only do the Angels play in this weekend’s ESPN Sunday Night Game against the Chicago White Sox (at Chicago), they have also been scheduled to play on Sunday night June 15 against the Atlanta Braves. That game is at home, so all of you with tickets to that night’s game, consider yourself informed. The June 15 game (as well as this Sunday’s game) will start at 5:09 p.m. Pacific time.
The Angels were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position in Saturday’s defeat to the Dodgers, raising old questions about offensive continuity. With Chone Figgins and Howie Kendrick on the disabled list, the Angels haven’t been able to find an offensive flow.
“We taolked about it for the last couple of weeks,” manager Mike Scioscia said. “Right now we’re in a lull. We’re not driving the ball like we did earlier in the year. We’re not setting the table and when we do set teh table we’re not getting the situational hitting. This thing will turn around.
“We’re very capable of scoring 10 runs like we did this week against the White Sox. But we need that consistency, getting two runners on every inning, pushing the envelope. We can’t do things we like to do in our running game because we haven’t set the table like we like to.”
Manager Mike Scioscia said he isn’t sure if Chone Figgins will go on a rehab assignment, but it seems certain that the Angels’ third baseman will return at some point during the upcoming road trip to Toronto and Chicago. Figgins has been out of action since May 4 with a strained right hamstring.
Injuries to Figgins and Howie Kendrick (strained left hamstring) have hurt offensive chemistry. Consistent run scoring has been a problem of late.
“Well, if you look at the numbers with runners in scoring position, early Figgy was a big part of seeting the table,” Scioscia said before Saturday’s game. “Some of those numbers have maybe become a little stagnant in the last couple of weeks. But it’s not just Figgy, it’s a lot of the guys.
“You certainly have to be deep enough to absorb 2-3 guys at various times that are going to be out for awhile during the season. I think what we’ve experienced the last couple weeks is not only having guys out of the lineup, but guys not swinging the bats to their capabilities. So we haven’t been setting the table as well as we could.
“Even with these guys out of the lineup, we have a good offensive team. We haven’t performed to the level we need to, I’m sure there’s some important roles for guys who have been out, but I think the lion’s share of it is some of the guys we know are going to swing the bat well haven’t hit stride yet and that’s impacting our offense.”