Scioscia shakes up Angels’ batting order
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Angels Manager Mike Scioscia met with his coaches for more than 40 minutes Wednesday in an attempt to find a solution to their slumping offense.
‘We peeled the paint off of everything we’re looking at right now,’ Scioscia said. ‘We had some good discussion on some things and some things we still have to be patient with. Some things we have to change to try to move forward and still give our pitchers a chance.’
And when the conversation ended, Scioscia scribbled out one of the most unusal lineups of the year, one that had Maicer Izturis hitting third, Alberto Callaspo hitting fifth, Howie Kendrick batting sixth and Vernon Wells hitting seventh for the first time since 2007.
‘We’re trying to get a little continuity, a little bit of chemistry,’ Scioscia said. ‘Izzy hitting third is a function of maybe trying to set the table a little bit for a guy that’s been swinging well for us. And Alberto’s been good from the left side. We’re trying to just get different dimensions to our lineup.
‘We need to get some things together.... We are going to mix and match to find some chemistry. When we find some chemistry, we will stay with it.’
One of the things has most frustrated Scioscia is his team’s lack of production in scoring position, especially in the middle of the lineup. Izturis is hitting .286 with runners on second or third and Callaspo is hitting .292 in that situation.
‘There’s some holes in our lineup now,’ Scioscia said. ‘We’d like to have three Izzys so we can fill some of them. We just have one right now and he’s going to hit third and see if we can build around it.’
The lineups:
Angels
SS -- Erick Aybar
DH -- Bobby Abreu
2B -- Maicer Izturis
RF -- Torii Hunter
3B -- Alberto Callaspo
1B -- Howie Kendrick
LF -- Vernon Wells
C -- Hank Conger
CF -- Peter Bourjos
P -- Ervin Santana
Boston Red Sox
CF -- Jacoby Ellsbury
2B -- Dustin Pedroia
1B -- Adrian Gonzalez
3B -- Kevin Youkilis
DH -- David Ortiz
SS -- Jed Lowrie
RF -- Mike Cameron
LF -- Carl Crawford
C -- Jason Varitek
P -- Josh Beckett
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-- Kevin Baxter in Boston