Monday's Bunts and Boots--Angels Pitching, Met Silverman, and HOFer Clark

If you take two good starting pitchers away from any major league team, the result would be significantly damaging. So it's not surprising that already much has been made of the fact that the Angels will have to endure the entire month of April without the services of Kelvim Escobar, who has a sore elbow, and John Lackey, who is struggling with a strained triceps. The Angels' hope is that both will be able to return sometime in May, but even that is uncertain.
While the losses of Lackey and Escobar have made the prospects for teams like the Mariners that much better, the fact of the matter is this: no team is better equipped to handle injuries to their starting rotation than the Angels. With the off-season addition of Jon Garland and a cache of ready-made prospects that includes Dustin Moseley and Nick Adenhart, the Angels have the kind of depth that can sustain them through a temporary wave of injuries. The key word here is temporary. If Lackey has to miss the entire season, that's an enormous loss that may cost the Angels the AL West. But if Lackey can return to the rotation by mid-May and regain full strength by June, the Angels will remain the favorites in the West. Now they still might need another bigtime hitter to protect Vladimir Guerrero, but that's a story for another day...

I'm always on the lookout for good baseball web sites. With that in mind, Mets fans should become aware of a new site featuring the work of devoted Mets diehard Matt Silverman. Matt has launched a worthwhile site called www.metsilverman.com. An avid follower of both the current-day Mets and the team's entire history, especially from the 1970s on, Matt is a prolific author of books and articles about New York's National League franchise. By the way, I love the name of the web site. Anytime you can creatively and seamlessly combine your name with the name of your favorite topic, you've done a good thing. Best of luck with the new venture, Matt...

Peter Clark is a name with whom fans of baseball history should become acquainted. Peter, who serves as the Hall of Fame's curator of collections, has been with the institution for 38 years, making him the longest tenured employee at 25 Main Street. The gentlemanly Clark is the feature of a nice article that's just been posted at the home page of the Hall of Fame's web site. Never one to seek attention for himself, Peter is one of baseball's essential "quiet" guys.