03-14-2016, 03:16 AM
ANAHEIM, Calif. - After six months of steady play capped by a stellar September, the Los Angeles Angels earned the best record in baseball and their first playoff trip in five years.And then that trip lasted only four days.Once theyve recovered from an unceremonious AL Division Series sweep at the smoking-hot hands of the Kansas City Royals, the Angels must figure out what they can salvage from a 98-win regular season and a brutally swift post-season exit.Angels manager Mike Scioscia succinctly summed up his 15th season and the merciless nature of October: (The Angels) played hard all season, and we had a rough three games.And the Angels high-priced hitters had the worst games of all for a team that scored only six runs in 31 post-season innings.Mike Trout, the likely AL MVP, went 1 for 12 in his first post-season series. Albert Pujols, the $240 million slugger, was 2 for 12 with two RBIs.Josh Hamilton was booed repeatedly by Angels fans when he returned for the post-season after sitting out most of September with various upper-body injuries. The $125 million left fielder with three years left on his contract went a miserable 0 for 13 against the Royals.We won a lot of ballgames, but in the playoffs, the slate is wiped clean, Hamilton said. I dont think we played poorly.Until the last 10 days, the AL West champions were an uncommonly resilient ballclub. Even after losing starting pitchers Garrett Richards and Tyler Skaggs to season-ending injuries in August while playing in one of baseballs best divisions, the Angels hadnt lost more than four straight games all year a€” before they dropped the final three games of the regular season and their only three playoff games.You dont go in with any badge saying you won the most games, and youre certainly not going to get any points for that going into the playoffs, Scioscia said. We did a lot of things well during the series. We just didnt finish some games off. Those guys got some big hits, and they beat us. But you have to get your foot in the door. We know how tough it is to get your foot in the door.Whether the Angels can keep that foot in the door is the question of the off-season.With their first playoff berth since 2009, the Angels finally accomplished something worthy of the enormous expectations brought on by their hefty payroll. That wont be much comfort while owner Arte Moreno watches two teams with a fraction of that financial investment playing for a World Series berth this weekend.Morenos urgency has a price beyond those big checks. Los Angeles has signed Pujols, Hamilton and Trout to contracts worth more than a combined $500 million, but the Angels also parted ways with several top prospects and first-round draft picks in the past few years while trying to win now.So the Angels are likely to return next season with Trout and much the same core of well-compensated players mostly in their 30s, supplemented by whats considered one of the majors thinnest farm systems. It worked well this season, but its hardly the intuitive way to win.Yet the Angels also have plenty of promising pieces. Two of the best young starters in baseball emerged from their system this season in Richards and 16-game winner Matt Shoemaker, while the Angels bullpen became a force after a few canny in-season moves by general manager Jerry Dipoto.And though he wasnt impressive last week, Trout is still the best player in baseball at just 23 years old. The franchise will be built around Trout for the foreseeable future, a blueprint that pretty much any team would love to have.Pujols, who still has seven years left on his $240 million contract, spent the entire summer angrily dismissing suggestions that anything except the post-season held any importance to Los Angeles. When the Angels flopped in the playoffs, Pujols already was looking ahead to next October.Weve got too many veteran guys here, he said. I think we can bounce back. Its not going to be the last post-season were going to be together as a group. ROGERS, Ark. -- Stacy Lewis made a 7-foot birdie putt on the final hole Sunday in the NW Arkansas Championship to finally win an official event in her adopted state. The top-ranked Lewis, the Texan who played at the nearby University of Arkansas, earned an unofficial win in the rain-shortened 2007 tournament as an amateur. On Sunday, she closed with a 6-under 65 for a one-stroke victory. Lewis birdied three of her final holes for her third LPGA Tour victory of the year and 11th overall. She finished at 12-under 201 at Pinnacle Country Club. Lydia Ko, Cristie Kerr and Angela Stanford tied for second. Ko finished with a 65, and Kerr and Stanford shot 67. Second-round leader Michelle Wie shot a 73 to tie for eighth at 8 under. Kerr had a chance to match Lewis at 12 under with a 30-foot birdie putt on the 18th. However, her putt came up short. Then, after So Yeon Ryu failed to make an eagle on the final hole, Lewis win was secured. Ryu ended up fifth at 10 under after a 69. Lewis won the Shoprite Classic this month as well as the North Texas Shootout in May. The two-time major winner has long said, though, how much pressure she felt to win in Arkansas -- where she was a four-time All-American in college and is greeted throughout rounds by calls of "Woo Pig Sooie." She was tied for the lead entering the final round last year before finishing in a tie for fourth, but her final birdie spree finally secured her sought-after win Sunday. Wie began the final round with a two-shot lead after back-to-back 5-under 66s, but she missed short birdie putts on the first two holes and struggled to a 1-over front nine -- capped by a three-putt bogey on the ninth.dddddddddddd The whirlwind media tour following last weeks win at the U.S. Womens Open appeared to finally catch up after that with Wie, who followed with bogeys on Nos. 10 and 11 to effectively end her contention. She finished with 35 putts after needing 28 the first round and 29 in the second. With Wie coming back to the field, several players climbed up the leaderboard and into contention on the back nine -- with Lewis, Ko, Kerr and Stanford part of a four-way tie atop the leaderboard at one point. Lewis began the tournament 2 over after her first four holes Friday, but she closed by shooting 14 under over her final 68 holes. She took advantage of the opening with Wies stumble and vaulted into the solo lead at 11 under with a birdie on the par-4 16th. Ko and Kerr answered with birdies to climb back to part of a three-way tie at 11 under, but Lewis had the last answer -- a 7-foot left-to-right birdie putt on No. 18 that resulted in a huge ovation from the pro-Arkansas gallery and a fist pump and sigh of relief from Lewis. Lewis putted 25 times Sunday, a day after needing only 24 putts in the second round. Chella Choi briefly was tied for the lead early in the round after a hole-in-one on the 166-yard par-3 sixth hole. She finished with a 69 to tie for sixth at 9 under. 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