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But
at some point this season, Jim Eppard will be expected to do what
Mickey Hatcher couldn’t do: breathe some life into a group of hitters
that has confounded everyone who has seen them play, including
themselves.
Can it be done? Firing coaches or managers in
midseason is usually a last resort, a move designed to shake up a
clubhouse and impact a team’s direction. Once in a while, it actually
works.
Dumping Mickey Hatcher as hitting coach wasn’t exactly
well received by the players, and certainly not by manager Mike
Scioscia, but with the Angels foundering near the bottom of the American
League in almost every important offensive category, it was a
predictable move.
Now it’s up to Eppard, promoted from his job
as hitting coach at Triple-A Salt Lake, to put the offense on the right
road. And the quicker the better.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,”
general manager Jerry Dipoto said Wednesday at Angel Stadium. “I can’t
tell you it’s going to be 48 or 72 hours, but I believe over time that
it should help.”
The parting probably was most difficult for
Scioscia. Hatcher had been Scioscia’s hitting coach since 1999, when
Scioscia managed the Dodgers’ Albuquerque farm club. When the Angels
named him manager the next year, he brought Hatcher with him. The two
also were teammates on the Dodgers, winning a World Series in 1988, and
they won one in Anaheim in 2002.
Scioscia was Hatcher’s most
ardent supporter, although he would not discuss how strongly he argued
to retain him. But clearly he didn’t blame his friend for the fact the
Angels ranked 12th in the American League in runs, had been shut out
eight times and were 27th in the majors in runs per game (3.61).
“We were not in an offensive funk because of Mickey,” he said.
But
someone was going to bear the weight of a tired offense, and there was
no other choice but Hatcher. It had been on Dipoto’s mind for some time,
and not even the Angels’ 4-0 win over the Oakland A’s on Tuesday could
keep him safe.
“I’ve thought long and hard about it for some time,” Dipoto said, “but the decision was obviously made (Tuesday).”
Eppard,
52, is hardly new to anyone in the clubhouse. He is in his 10th season
in the organization and worked with every player in spring training. How
he’ll differ from Hatcher and what he’ll attempt to do to bring life to
the offense will be seen over time.
“The important thing is
that we’re going to get back to some basics of trying to get good
pitches to hit, and when we get those good pitches to hit, we’re not
going to be hesitating on the swing,” Eppard said. “We’re just going to
go ahead and get after it.”
He has plenty of work to do,
beginning with Albert Pujols, whose season-long slump has been
particularly confusing. Pujols, whose batting average has hovered around
.200 for several weeks, hit only his second home run Wednesday night
against the Chicago White Sox.
Asked how he plans to approach
Pujols, Eppard said, “I ask Albert a lot of questions. I’m constantly
trying to learn myself as I go along, and when you get an opportunity to
be around a guy like that with the credentials that he has, it’s a
great opportunity to find some new stuff out. That’s what I tried to do
in spring training.”
Eppard, who won four batting titles in the
minors and played four years in the majors, has a familiarity with the
Angels’ younger players, including Mark Trumbo, Peter Bourjos and Mike
Trout. But he can do only so much.
“It’s up to us as players to
go out there and get it done,” Trumbo said. “I think Epp is going to be
an outstanding resource for us, but at the end of the day, he’s not the
one going up there and swinging the bat.”
Nor was Hatcher, but
that didn’t matter. Dipoto has made no secret of his disappointment in
the offense, which he said was “grossly underperforming.” So no matter
how much Scioscia believed in Hatcher, he wasn’t going to save his job.
Scioscia and Dipoto may be at odds over this, but they’ll have to find a common ground to move forward. That’s the bottom line.
“Mickey
is a great teacher, a great hitting coach,” Scioscia said. “We all
respect what the general manager’s office is about and what Jerry is
looking at to move us forward, and we’ll move forward.”
