ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -Many wondered if Rocco Baldelli would ever play baseball again when he announced in spring training that he had mitochondrial disorder, which causes chronic muscle fatigue and slows muscle recovery.
The Rays outfielder not only got back on the field this season, he was the designated hitter for Game 2 of Tampa Bay’s AL division series with the Chicago White Sox on Friday night.
“Just to be out here, it’s almost like a special present somebody gave me,” Baldelli said. “I didn’t think I had much of a chance to come back and play. I was hoping. I didn’t see much progression as far as my physical condition. I thought it was pretty much a safe assumption that I wasn’t going to be back, but I never lost the desire to comeback.”
Medication helped Baldelli improve as the season progressed. He rejoined the team Aug. 10, hitting .263 with four homers and 13 RBIs in 28 games.
re not hindering me getting out on the field.”
Manager Joe Maddon said he always thought Baldelli would play again, but not necessarily this soon.
“Coming back from the disorder that he has and being to able participate now is remarkable,” Maddon said. “Obviously, most of the credit goes to Rocco himself. But I want to point out our medical group has been fabulous. And Ron Porterfield, our trainer, has spearheaded all of this.”
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NO EXCUSES FOR ANGELS: Angels manager Mike Scioscia made no excuses for his team’s postseason problems against the Red Sox, who entered Friday night’s game having won the last 10 playoff games between the teams.
“There is no mistake about this. They’ve played better baseball than we have in playoff environments head-to-head,” Scioscia said. “In ’04, they took it to us. Last year, they took it to us. They’re a terrific club and we’re a terrific club.”
Scioscia wasn’t about to take responsibility for the first three games of the Angels’ postseason losing streak to the Red Sox. They occurred in 1986, when Boston rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the AL championship series to win the final three games and advance to the World Series, where they lost to the Mets.
Scioscia was playing catcher for the Dodgers at that time.
do with what’s going on here.”
“I was 11,” outfielder Torii Hunter said at a pregame news conference.
“You were still in diapers,” Scioscia said, drawing a laugh from the assembled media.
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SITTING OUT: Boston’s Mike Lowell and his injured hip took a seat Friday night in Game 2 of the AL division series against the Los Angeles Angels.
Manager Terry Francona made a couple of lineup changes, moving Kevin Youkilis from first base to third as a replacement for Lowell, inserting Mark Kotsay at first, and replacing Jed Lowrie with Alex Cora at shortstop.
Kotsay entered with seven hits in 18 at-bats against Angels starter Ervin Santana.
Lowell went hitless in four at-bats in Game 1, appearing hampered by the torn labrum in his left hip that limited him to one at-bat in the final two weeks of the regular season.
“With Mike Lowell, that was a hard one for me,” Francona said. “He wants to play. It would be a shock for him not to. But, again, sometimes some decisions are harder than others. I feel like I have an obligation to do the best I can in making decisions and I always will. But I admit, some are harder than others.”
Francona wouldn’t say for sure if Lowell would play in any capacity.
and you shove him out there to play defense, that’s not fair.
“Without giving away our strategy, if he fits a hitting situation where it’s strictly hitting, he doesn’t have to leg out something, I think he can help us win,” he added. “But I would never put him in a situation that I think is unfair.”
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FACING A DEFICIT: Brewers interim manager Dale Sveum has seen a team of his climb out of a hole bigger than 0-2.
Sveum was third-base coach of the 2004 Red Sox, who overcame an 0-3 deficit in the ALCS to win eight straight games and capture the franchise’s first World Series in 86 years.
Now his Brewers must find a way out of an 0-2 hole against the Phillies after getting just three runs off seven hits in the first two games.
“It can happen,” Sveum said. “There’s always somebody sitting here right now that’s gone through it, and they witnessed it. These guys in that clubhouse saw what happened in ’04, they know it can be done.”
Sveum credited Kevin Millar and others that kept those Red Sox loose after a 19-8 loss in Game 3.
“We had a really good team like we have in that clubhouse right now,” Sveum said. “You don’t win 90 games and not have a really good team.”
But history only goes so far.
ia. This is Milwaukee’s first postseason trip since that group overcame an 0-2 deficit in the ALCS.
“They’ve heard a lot about the ’82 team. They’ve made their own team here and their own destiny,” Sveum said. “But to bring up something like that would be like me walking in there and talking about the Red Sox or the Yankees. Players don’t really want to hear that. They know it, but you don’t call meetings for it or anything.”
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OH, BABY: Brewers center fielder Mike Cameron left the team and is in Atlanta to be with his wife, who had the couple’s fourth child, Lily Christina, on Friday.
Cameron is expected to rejoin Milwaukee in time for Game 3 against the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday night in the National League division series. The Phillies lead the series 2-0.
Cameron, a three-time Gold Glove winner, signed with Milwaukee this past offseason and hit .243 with 25 homers and 70 RBIs in 120 games. In the first two games of the NLDS, he’s 0-for-7 with three strikeouts.
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SEASONED SALTS: The Cubs’ Lou Piniella has managed 3,262 regular-season games, and the Dodgers’ Joe Torre has been at the helm for 4,005. Combined, the two skippers have the distinction of having the most managerial experience of opposing managers in the postseason.
The previous high was 6,651 total games set by Tony La Russa and Jim Leyland in the 2006 World Series, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
With the Dodgers just one win away from taking the series, Torre already holds a 2-0 edge in postseason meetings, with the New York Yankees defeating Piniella’s Seattle Mariners in the ALCS in 2000 and 2001.
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DISBELIEVING: Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe has been very impressed with Joe Torre’s style of managing, although he wondered at one particularly low point of the season just what was going on in Torre’s mind.
“During out eight-game losing streak, he keep talking about how we were going to win the division,” Lowe said, smiling. “I was beginning to wonder just what kind of a `disbelief’ system he was using.”
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