Los Angeles won the AL West in four of the past five years, only to be eliminated three times by the Red Sox in the opening round and by the Chicago White Sox in the 2005 ALCS. The Angels made their only trip to the World Series in 2002, when they were a wild card, and beat San Francisco in seven games.
Owner Arte Moreno and general manager Tony Reagins face some big decisions: Do they exercise options on Vladimir Guerrero ($15 million), Garret Anderson ($14 million) and Lackey ($9 million). Do they try to re-sign Teixeira, who was brought in for the last two months of the season and is eligible for free agency? Do they attempt to keep Rodriguez, who set a major league regular-season record with 62 saves but gave up a game-deciding, two-run homer to J.D. Drew in Game 2.
The Angels may be willing to let Rodriguez go because Jose Arredondo has shown he could take over the closer's role. Rodriguez is likely to command a five-year deal worth at least $75 million on the free-agent market.
"This has been my family for 10 years. I would love to stay here for many years. I don't know what's going to happen," Rodriguez said.
Dissecting the Angels' latest postseason flop would seem to seem to boil down to one telling number - 43. That's how many runners they stranded in the four games while scoring only 13 runs.
It wasn't that the Angels weren't hitting. Their hits just weren't producing runs.
Rather amazingly, Teixeira and Guerrero each went 7-for-15 (.467) and provided a grand total of one RBI, by Teixeira. Hunter was the exception in the heart of the order; he went 7-for-18 and drove in five runs.
Among the disappointments at the plate were Howie Kendrick (2-for-17 with no RBIs) and Anderson (3-for-19 with no RBIs).
Then there was the Angels' squeeze that failed in the ninth inning of the concluding game Monday night, when Erick Aybar missed his bunt attempt and catcher Jason Varitek tagged out Reggie Willits.
"Erick is one of the best bunters we have," Scioscia said, "and it didn't work out."
When sitting down to dissect what awaited them against the Angels in the American League Division Series, the Red Sox brass made a miscalculation.
"One thing we screwed up was we couldn't get air conditioning in our hotel room," said Boston general manger Theo Epstein.
