Now before someone says something, I realize that the following quotes came from a Bill Plaschke article. I will be the first to admit that Plaschke (much like his Times compatriot TJ Simers) is a blithering douchebag. But even Plaschke's particular brand of ill-informed muckraking cannot detract from the wisdom imparted by the words of Mr. Angel himself:

"I love the way these guys won the division manufacturing runs," Tim Salmon said. "But why did we win the World Series? We won because Scott Spiezio hit a home run. We did not win because Scott Spiezio hit a single."

...

"It's frustrating to watch," said Salmon, who was careful to note that he was not being critical of the players or the manager.

"The players are great at what they do, and you'll never hear Mike complain about anything," Salmon said. "But you can't deny that every team in this position needs a couple of clutch hitters who, late in the game, can win a game in one swing."

...

As Salmon noted, manufacturing runs against different levels of pitchers during the regular season is one thing, but trying to do it against everybody's ace in the postseason is a different thing entirely.

"I think we saw the other night, maybe the only way to manufacture two runs against a guy like Josh Beckett would be to hit a two-run homer," Salmon said.

Angels are pretty much powerless