MARK WHICKER Bad luck aside, Angels went as far as they could

Los Angeles got none of the breaks and most of the losses in the ALCS.
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The play that sent the White Sox to their first World Series since 1959 was also the play that defined the Angels in the second week of October.
The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing.
It was 3-3 in the top of the eighth, with Kelvim Escobar pitching for the Angels. He struck out the first two White Sox he faced. He also had Aaron Rowand down 0-and-2, then walked him.
(Remember when "0-2 to 4-2" was a major point of pride on the Angels' offensive checklist?)
A.J. Pierzynski, who comes up 11 percent of the time but is in the middle of the death scene 99 percent of the time, bunted to the mound. The ball glanced off Escobar and to the turf.
Escobar tried to run down the lumbering White Sox catcher, instead of merely throwing the ball to first baseman Darin Erstad.
(Oh, what aggravation we all would have been spared if the Angels had just thrown to first a couple of times.)
"I thought I had a chance to get him, but he was down the line a little bit farther than I thought," Escobar said. "I misplayed it. I had to tag him however I could, and I was trying to put the ball in my glove when I saw I couldn't tag him with my bare hand. I just tagged him with the glove."
The glove did not contain the ball, a fact that eluded first base umpire Randy Marsh. He called Pierzynski out. Ozzie Guillen rocketed out of the visiting dugout, and now second base ump (and crew chief) Jerry Crawford and home ump Ed Rapuano joined Marsh.
Bad break
At that point the Angels were in the dugout. Escobar knew he would not be there long.
"I knew I didn't tag him," Escobar said. "They got all the breaks in this series, but that could have been a break for us. But I wasn't surprised."
No. The umpires pointed at first base, the crowd roared as if they were signaling Pierzynski was out, and then Mike Scioscia made his nightly charge onto the field when it became clear Pierzynski was really safe.
Again, anyone who has been paying attention knew what Joe Crede would do next. Facing Francisco Rodriguez, he golfed a slider up the middle, and Rowand rushed around to score.
The 4-3 lead became a 6-3 victory, as Rodriguez dug uncomfortably at the dirt and frowned at the falling rain. And the Angels finished 0-for-14 off Jose Contreras after Chone Figgins had tomahawked a go-ahead double in the fifth.
A season of intermittence was over for the Angels, who slogged their way through late summer, snapped out of it to win the AL West and eliminate the Yankees, and then got steamrollered in their own park.
Expiration date
Teams have expiration dates. This was as far as the Angels were destined to go, and yet they came within two little plays -- the Game 2 caper and the Escobar play -- of maybe leading 3-2 going to Chicago.
"They made pitches every time they had to make pitches. They got big hits every time they had to get big hits," said Jarrod Washburn, who said he "probably" was wearing his Angels jersey for the final time. He still had it on, long afterward.
"We swept them in September when they were going into a little funk and it looked like their pitchers were getting a little tired," Washburn said. "It must have been that 'dead arm' syndrome that you normally get in the spring. They sure got their second wind."
The White Sox proved that the best bullpen is the one that never pitches. The starters dealt the Angels a .175 average, lowest ever in an LCS.
Difference
Ultimately the difference could be measured between Paul Konerko (seven RBIs, two home runs) and Vladimir Guerrero (1 for 20). The White Sox not only got 17 ground-ball outs from Guerrero, who hit one ball to the outfield, they constantly challenged his arm. Obviously there's something more than wear-and-tear going on here, to disable the American League's most kinetic player.
The bullpen parade began in the fifth when Scioscia didn't want Paul Byrd to face Konerko a third time. He went to Scot Shields, a favored matchup that Shields again won.
But now Shields had to pitch the sixth as well, and Escobar came in for the seventh and eighth. The White Sox made him throw 42 pitches, and it meant Rodriguez had to pitch in a tie game, and closers just aren't wired to do that.
"I felt good," Escobar said. "Rowand just took some real good pitches and got the walk, and that's when everything started."
But before that, Crede homered to left off Escobar, tying it 3-3. Crede, remember, had whacked the winning double off Escobar in Game 2. The third baseman wound up with 15 total bases in five games.
"He's usually trying to inside-out the ball to right," Escobar said. "The way to pitch him is to go hard inside. I did that this time, and he must have been cheating, because he hit that pitch good."
Look of champions
The White Sox had the glint of champions. They scored runs in 10 of 18 innings in Games 4 and 5. On Sunday Rowand led off the second with a double, Pierzynski sacrificed him to third and Crede delivered a sacrifice fly. You can't touch that.
But then the White Sox have only lost one playoff game, and that was Game 1 of this series, when they bumbled their way to a 3-2 loss. They made no mistakes thereafter, and Guillen became the first foreign-born manager (Venezuela) to make it to a World Series.
"They won it on the field," Garret Anderson said. "If it's July, you don't see Ozzie letting those pitchers go nine. But I wasn't surprised because they kept making pitches. They beat us."
Thus ends the Angels' 2005 ride. Considering that both hands were rarely on the wheel, it went quite a ways.
XMark Whicker is a columnist for the Orange County Register.