Erick Aybar Drives in Mike Scioscia 1,000th Win

Mike Scioscia helmed his 1,000th career managerial victory with a 6-5 Mothers Day Angels win over the Indians in front of a sea of red that he as much as anyone helped create and cultivate in his first eleven seasons.

But nothing is perfect and into year number "Dozen of Anaheim", today's win had all the hallmarks of a classic Mike Scioscia overmanaged, role-playing damaged meltdown. Of his 817 regular season managerial losses at the helm of the Angels, plenty have been delivered through rigid miscalculations of square players fitting into round roles. Sunday afternoon looked like a tailormade Sothball bullpen meltdown with Fernando Rodney turning a one-run lead into a one-run deficit.

Why was Rodney in the game with Scott Downs having only thrown four pitches in the bottom of the 7th to record that last out of that frame? Rigid roles. When it is working, like it has with Shield-to-Percival during Scioscia's tenure, it is a quaintly enjoyable consistency in a game of chaos. But the 2011 season has already seen a few losses laid at the feet of the Rigid Role altar and Game #35 was smoldering in the funeral pyre when Mark Trumbo beat out a high hop grounder and Peter Bourjos speedifying his way to first on a bouncer off the plate that scored Howie Kendrick from 3B. Erick Aybar followed with a monster double to retake the lead

Earlier in the game it was a monster two-out double by Alberto Callaspo to give the Angels lead that was the talk of the game. Dan Haren tossed an astounding 6.2 inning pitching performance and Jordan Walden had a chaotic 9th inning but managed to earn the Save.