Angels officially out of the race
C.J. Cron is neither brash nor outspoken. The unassuming Angels first baseman has as much raw power as any player in baseball but does not display the swagger of a slugger. Or does he? “This guy is confident,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Maybe he doesn’t exude it like other players, but when he’s in that batter’s box, he thinks he’s the best hitter in the world, and you need that. He’s been showing it for most of the year.”
In this lost season for the Angels, who were mathematically eliminated from the American League West race with Saturday night’s 8-5 loss to divisionleading Texas, they may have found another reliable bat to add to a solid core of Yunel Escobar, Kole Calhoun, Mike Trout and Albert Pujols.
After getting demoted to the minor leagues twice in 2015, Cron appears to have firmly established himself in Anaheim, a process that continued Saturday night when he hit a run-scoring double to left field to give the Angels a short-lived 5-4 lead in the seventh inning.
The hit capped a threerun rally that featured Calhoun’s two-run homer off Keone Kela, but the Rangers countered with three in the top of the eighth for a 7-5 lead.
Texas catcher Jonathan Lucroy hit a two-run homer off Jose Valdez, Nomar Mazara followed with a triple, and pinch-runner Jared Hoying scored on Valdez’s wild pitch. Adrian Beltre’s RBI single in the ninth made it 8-5.
Cron is batting .283 with 16 homers, 63 runs batted in and an .824 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 96 games. He’s been even better since returning from a broken bone in his left hand that sidelined him for 35 games. In 19 games since Aug. 20, Cron is hitting .299 (23 for 77) with an .880 OPS, five homers and 13 RBIs.
The 6-foot-4, 235-pound Cron’s numbers project to a 27-homer, 105-RBI pace over 162 games. If he can stay healthy and carry that production into 2017 he could be an impact player for the Angels.
“That’s my goal, I want to hit in the middle of the lineup,” Cron said Saturday. “I want to drive in runs. I want to be part of the core group.”
Power Rangers
Left fielder Carlos Gomez, released by Houston on Aug. 18 and signed by Texas two days later, hit two homers to spoil the Angels debut of right-hander Daniel Wright, who was claimed off waivers from Cincinnati on Sept. 4.
Gomez smacked the first pitch of the game, a 92-mph fastball, over the left-field wall. Ian Desmond walked, Carlos Beltran reached on an infield single, and Lucroy lined an RBI double to left for a 2-0 lead.
The Angels scored in the third on Trout’s sacrifice fly, but Gomez drove a firstpitch changeup from Wright for a two-run homer to center in the fourth to give Texas a 4-1 lead. Jett Bandy’s RBI groundout pulled the Angels to within 4-2 in the bottom of the fourth.
Rangers left-hander Cole Hamels, who was tagged for 13 earned runs in six innings of his previous two starts, gave up two runs and four hits in six innings, striking out six and walking four.
Return engagement
General Manager Billy Eppler said in August that he had “no reason to believe” Scioscia won’t be managing the Angels next season, and Scioscia gave every indication that he would return for an 18th season despite the team’s 62-78 record entering Saturday night.
“I haven’t talked to anybody about it — I’m focused on what’s going on here on a day-to-day basis,” said Scioscia, who was ejected for complaining about umpire Mike Winters’ strike zone in the ninth inning Saturday night.
“There’s no doubt I feel good about the direction the organization is going. I think our baseball conversations are terrific. I’m extremely disappointed as to where our won-loss record is, but I still love it.”
Shoemaker hospitalized
Pitcher Matt Shoemaker, who had surgery last week to stop bleeding on the brain after he was hit in the head by a Kyle Seager line drive in Seattle on Sept. 4, was hospitalized overnight as a precaution, Eppler said after the game.
Shoemaker, who suffered a skull fracture and a hematoma, underwent an MRI test on Saturday. Eppler said the test was inconclusive.
The pitcher’s Southern California-based neurosurgeon, Dr. Greg Withers, then opted to admit Shoemaker to the hospital, where a CT scan to determine whether there was further swelling on the brain came back negative.