Second Guessing

It's good to see the Angels win two games with a combined score of 18-5 without outhitting the O's. I wonder if that says something about the Angels offense or pitcher or is mere luck. Unfortunately, the Halos were unable to complete the sweep against the Birds, who played under new interim manager and former bench coach Sam Perrozzo after firing Lee Mazzilli. They got some help from the Angels defense (again!), as Erstad made an error that led to two unearned runs in the 3rd. Erstad had twisted his ankle earlier in the game while going over the mound after a popup. He was replace later by Kotchman and is listed day-to-day. Sammy Sosa added two more on his 588th career dinger, following a hit batter. Still, Ervin Santana pitched a fine game, allowing only two earned runs on 5 hits in seven innings, striking out 7 while walking 2. The Angels offense was the problem as they managed only two hits of starter Lopez, but when he left after five, the Angels still couldn't get anything going against the O's pen. Still, they somehow managed to load the bases in the eight with two out against the southpaw Ryan and Finley (2K and a groundout so far) at the plate, but Scioscia decided to pinch hit for him. This decision seems reasonable with Finley being a left-handed hitter. But as I've mentioned before, Finley is actually hitting lefthanders much better than righties (and wasn't bad against lefties in the past). So Ryan is especially tough on lefties then? On the contrary! Lefties had better success against him, hitting .239, .321, .457 compared to .206, .275, .279 for righties. But Scioscia brings in a right-handed batter anyway (to be fair: he was tougher on lefties in the past years). At least Jose Molina was indeed the best option available (other than Finley) and he has hit lefties pretty well this year (.283, .353, .478 in 46 AB), although that's not significantly better than Finley (.280, .330, .484 in 93 AB). Also, Jose's numbers in the past against LHP aren't that great (.264, .301., .364 in 2002-04).
All in all, the decision to bring in Jose is defendable by the numbers, as well as leaving Finley in the game. In my opinion though, Scioscia should have left Finley in, hoping that he gets a big hit and rebuilds some confidence.