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The Angels finally managed to win one of these low-scoring nail biters, a skill they may have to perfect if there's to be any hope for this season.

Alberto Callaspo doubled into the left-field corner in the 11th inning to drive in two runs as the Angels beat the Oakland A's 3-1 Wednesday at Network Associates Coliseum. The Angels improved to 4-9 in one-run games.

The Good:

Weaver cruises. This is what it's like to pitch for the Angels this season. Jered Weaver made one mistake -- he hung a changeup in the middle of the plate to Seth Smith -- and it meant he wouldn't be the first AL pitcher to seven wins. Weaver absolutely dominated Oakland for eight innings, but -- as Ervin Santana and Dan Haren could have told him -- it's not easy pitching for this offense.

Rookie moment. Kole Calhoun slashed a double to left field and Angels first-base coach Alfredo Griffin made a point of asking the A's for the ball. It was Calhoun's first major-league hit. Things have happened quickly for the former eighth-round pick out of Arizona State. Calhoun forced his way onto the Angels' prospect watch by hitting .324 at Single-A last season and he spent only 43 games at Triple-A before injuries prompted the Angels to call him up. How far will this story go?

Bullpen dominates. Between the addition of Ernesto Frieri, who picked up his first save, the rebound of Jordan Walden and the steadiness of Scott Downs, the back end of the Angels' bullpen suddenly looks bankable for the first time. Those three managed to take over for Weaver without letting Oakland's offense get any hope of awakening. Frieri throws 93 mph, but it looks like he is throwing 100 because of lateral movement. He has struck out 19 batters in 8 2/3 innings as an Angel. Not even Francisco Rodriguez when he first arrived could match that pace.

The Bad:

Missing, inaction. Howie Kendrick has apparently altered his approach in the last couple of seasons, sacrificing some contact for power. His strikeouts surged in tandem with his home run total last season, but so far this season the former is out-pacing the latter. Kendrick has already struck out 40 times, putting him on pace for more than 150. For a guy who has never hit 20 home runs in a season, that would be way too high.

Running nowhere. It is a part of Albert Pujols' game that fits in easily around a Mike Scioscia team: aggressive base running. But when you try to catalyze an offense by taking ridiculous risks, you only exacerbate the problem. Pujols decided to try for third on Kendrys Morales' single to center field in the sixth inning and was out easily. When you give a team outs on the bases, especially easy ones, you're only speeding up the game clock on yourself.

Cooling off. For a supposedly veteran team, the Angels have been uncommonly reliant on two young players lately. And, now that Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo have cooled off, the offense has practically ground to a standstill. Trout and Trumbo have combined for three hits in their past 27 at-bats.

Albert Pujols told reporters Tuesday that his struggles this season largely have been the result of being overaggressive, of swinging at too many pitches out of the strike zone.

"Forty thousand people watching at the stadium could see that. People watching on TV could see that," he said. "I'm not doing that right now. I'm just putting good swings on it. Whenever it clicks, it clicks. Sometimes it takes awhile."

What appears to be happening -- even if it's in slow motion -- is that Pujols is easing back into a comfort zone, or at least the first stages of a comfort zone. In his first 27 games as an Angel, he batted .194 with zero home runs and five RBIs. In his last 16 games, he has batted .242 with four home runs and 15 RBIs. The batting average tells us he's still not the old Pujols, but the rest of his numbers suggest he's at least learning how to imitate him.

To his point, interestingly, we haven't seen his emphasis on patience translate into walks. He has just four of those in this 16-game stretch, about half his typical walk rate.

But here's how we know he still has plenty of time to obscure those memories of an ugly April and early May. If Pujols does what he did last year from this point forward, he will bat .282 with 34 home runs and 94 RBIs. Those numbers may not touch his MVP years, but they might be good enough to steer this season back where the Angels once thought it was headed.

The Angels got a dominating pitching performance from C.J. Wilson and saw some signs of life from Albert Pujols' bat in a 5-0 win over the Oakland A's Tuesday night.

The Good:

Mr. Steady. Other than a rain-shortened outing in Texas and his previous start -- when he was battling a stomach virus -- C.J. Wilson hasn't had a bad start all year. Tuesday, against the punchless A's, was one of his finest -- an eight-inning one-hitter. The jury is still out on the Angels' two marquee off-season acquisitions, but the Wilson investment looks a lot more sound so far than the Albert Pujols deal.

Albert. He hit his first home run on the road and also had a sacrifice fly. Every time you make grandiose statements about Pujols getting hot, he cools off again, so we'll refrain from that. But four home runs nearing the end of May sounds a lot better than zero going into early May. He's at least taking baby steps.

Pushing buttons. This has been a grueling couple of months for manager Mike Scioscia. His close friend, hitting coach Mickey Hatcher, got fired. Scioscia has taken more criticism than ever before. But Tuesday he seemed to set the right tone by giving Angels hitters a day off from on-field batting practice, something he calls "going American Legion." Maybe it helped alleviate a little pressure? Also, Scioscia seems, at last, to have settled on a more or less set lineup, with Mike Trout leading off, one of the switch-hitting third basemen batting second and either Kendrys Morales or Mark Trumbo at cleanup.

The Bad:

Aybar exits. Shortstop Erick Aybar took a breaking ball off the right knee and had to leave the game in the seventh inning. Aybar hasn't exactly been killing the ball at the plate, but if he's out for more than a couple of days, it could put a big dent in the Angels' defensive continuity. Also, the infield options in the minor-leagues are scant since the team sent Alexi Amarista to San Diego.

Maicer struggles. Maicer Izturis has been one of the more underrated players on the roster as long as he's been an Angel, and that's a long time (he's the longest-serving player on the roster, having been acquired from Montreal in 2004). The utility guy, however, has been in a mighty slump lately, just one hit in his last 19 at-bats. He had a rare 0-for-6 Sunday in San Diego and he followed that with Tuesday's 1-for-5 performance.

AL West hitting. Leave Texas out of the discussion and the offensive performance of the AL West is just staggeringly anemic. Wilson was good Tuesday, but was he this good? Oakland entered Tuesday night with a .216 team batting average. That's incredible.

The Angels can fail to score with the best of them.

After losing a series against the San Diego Padres, who have scored the second-fewest runs in baseball, the Angels traveled to play the team with the worst batting average in baseball. They lost again, this time to the Oakland A's by a score of 2-1.

The Angels' offense, well-hyped after an active winter, has scored more than two runs just once in the past five games.

The Good:

Mr. Solid. The decision to give Jerome Williams the final spot in the Angels' rotation is looking smarter by the week. Williams has been about as solid as a No. 5 starter can be lately. His ERA this month is under 3.00 and he has pitched at least into the seventh inning in every start this season other than his first in New York.

The 'pen is mighter than... we thought? The most-maligned part of the team -- fortified by the addition of hard-throwing Ernesto Frieri and by improved performances -- has given up just three earned runs in the past 23 innings. So, they've got that going for them, at least for now.

Trojan horse. OK, we've exhausted positive Angels news, so perhaps we should turn our praise to a Southern California native elsewhere. Tommy Milone, a Saugus native and ex-USC Trojan, has pitched brilliantly at the Oakland Coliseum and -- in 14 major-league starts -- has a 3.98 ERA. The A's acquired him from the Washington Nationals in the Gio Gonzalez trade and it looks like he could be a keeper.

The Bad:

Missing piece. With Vernon Wells out for at least the next two months after having surgery on his right thumb, Peter Bourjos is in for more playing time. That's good news when the Angels are in the field, but questionable news when they're hitting. The team needs Bourjos -- along with most of the other hitters -- to shake out of his early funk. Bourjos has been hovering around .200 most of the season.

Atrophy. Before Monday, Kendrys Morales had batted just 16 times against left-handed pitchers (and gotten three hits). It's no wonder he's a bit rusty from the right side. Morales went 0-for-4 Monday in a surprise start against the lefty and you wonder if it will be another month before Mike Scioscia gives him that chance again. If you're going to call this guy a switch-hitter, why not give him a chance to actually switch hit?

End game. It seems like a small thing, but the Angels have gotten virtually no offense from their catchers since Chris Iannetta got knocked out by a wrist injury. Bobby Wilson has one hit in his last 22 at-bats. With holes elsewhere in the lineup, the lack of production near the bottom of the order has become a bigger concern. It sounds a lot like last year, frankly.

We all knew there was a good chance the Angels would one day have an outfield of Mike Trout, Peter Bourjos and Mark Trumbo. We just didn't expect that day to be May 21, 2012.

This team's outfield has gone from having a glut of available players to being devoid of healthy, present bodies. Vernon Wells is out 8-10 weeks after thumb surgery. Torii Hunter remains on the restricted list while he deals with sexual-assault charges against his son, Darius, back in Texas. Bobby Abreu is batting .341 for the Dodgers.

And, at least for the moment, the rapid attrition seems to be roughly Reason No. 94 to worry about this team. It's miles behind Albert Pujols' slump, furlongs back of the bullpen's struggles and probably even stuck behind the Chris Iannetta injury and the lack of catching depth.

In fact, is it wrong to suggest this could actually help this team win some more games in the next few weeks? Bourjos is the best defensive outfielder in the organization, Trumbo's bat the most dangerous on the team for now and Trout perhaps a burgeoning superstar. Angels fans have been clamoring for this look since spring training and it's hard to fault them. If anything, it's the veterans who have held the Angels back, not the young players.

In 640 at-bats as an Angel, Wells is batting .223 with a .255 on-base percentage and 78 RBIs. Trout figures to be just as steady in the outfield and his performance the past three weeks suggest he's a massive upgrade offensively. Before Hunter left, he was doing his usual thing, producing steadily at the plate, playing Gold Glove-caliber outfield and holding the clubhouse together. But Trumbo has far more power, an equally strong arm and -- you have to say it -- won't have as much off-field stuff to worry about.

The center-field situation isn't quite as easy to shrug off, because Bourjos (.203) hasn't produced much with his bat. But over the same sample-size as Wells', all of Bourjos' offensive numbers are better, aside from power, and he can make nearly as much impact on the defensive side as Erick Aybar, another struggling hitter, can make from the shortstop position.

Time will tell how long this trio stays together -- and manager Mike Scioscia told reporters in San Diego he expects Hunter back by the end of the weekend -- but for now, it may be the most interesting thing this team has going for it. And, besides, who doesn't like a glimpse into the future?

The Angels looked for a while like they had reached a stalemate of offensive ineptitude, but finally someone managed to score.

The result was a 3-2 loss to the San Diego Padres in 13 innings, another stark example of the Angels' poor hitting, which hasn't abated since the firing of hitting coach Mickey Hatcher. Howie Kendrick bobbled a ball in left field, allowing Clayton Richard to score the winning run.

The Good:

Fast swimmer. It's impossible to avoid fish imagery when writing about Mike Trout. Sorry, that's just the way it is, so get used to it. The Angels' best prospect -- along with Mark Trumbo -- are keeping this team afloat, at least to the extent it's staying afloat. Trout mashed a home run to left-center and was 3-for-4, on base five times.

The aforementioned. Trumbo looks like a different guy. Specifically, he looks like a young Manny Ramirez. He's hitting line drives all over the place and, when he's not absolutely killing a baseball, he's getting on base via the base on balls. Trumbo's newfound patience has made him a far more complete player. 0p0l-p0---kjt

Pitching depth. The Padres are such an inept offensive team, it's hard to judge pitching performances. But Ervin Santana continued to slowly pull his season out of the muck and the bullpen was as good as you can be. Youngster David Carpenter deserves special mention for escaping an almost inescapable jam (winning run on third, one out) and pitching 2 1/3 scoreless innings.

The Bad:

K-Company. If the Angels are going to leave Howie Kendrick in the middle of the order, they're going to need him to produce at a far higher level with runners on base. Entering Sunday, Kendrick was batting .161 with runners in scoring position and .196 with runners on in general. With the bases loaded and one out in the 10th inning, Kendrick struck out swinging.

Sixth street. Maicer Izturis went 0 for 6 and stranded six runners. Need we go on?

Not so hot. When Albert Pujols hit home runs in back-to-back games late last week, it looked like he was about to go on one of his hot streaks, the kind that could carry the team. It hasn't happened. Pujols fell into a familiar pattern Sunday and had a 2-for-12, zero-RBI weekend in San Diego.

The Angels, searching for some offensive continuity, hit another cold patch in a 3-2 loss to the last-place San Diego Padres.

The Good:

Snapping out of it. Erick Aybar had been as cold as cold can be, but his bat has come awake in a big way the past two nights. Aybar had four more hits, driving in and scoring a run, and has six already in this weekend series. Aybar's days as a leadoff hitter may be over, but the Angels, especially without catcher Chris Iannetta, could use another active bat near the bottom of their lineup.

Trout's fire. As a rookie, Mike Trout probably shouldn't get into too many spats with umpires. At the same time, he has to play the game with emotion. He nearly beat out the shortstop's throw on his RBI groundout in the fifth inning, then made no secret of his unhappiness with Doug Eddings' call. Eddings, far from a popular figure with Angels fans following a controversial call in the 2005 ALCS, stared him down all the way to the dugout.

Back to form. It's hard to separate the opponent from the performance, but Dan Haren seemed to have crisper stuff Saturday night and that's a good sign for this rotation. Haren gave up three runs, but generally mowed down the punchless Padres through six innings. He also was working in the 90 mph range with his fastball, which seems to be a key mark.

The Bad:

Numbness. The Angels have a tendency to be lulled to sleep for long stretches of games, often against pedestrian pitchers. Soft-tossing lefty Eric Stults, an ex-Dodger, was able to breeze deep into the seventh inning while allowing only four hits. Only two Angels, Aybar and Trout, managed to pick up even one base hit off Stults.

The price. The Angels couldn't be happier with new reliever Ernesto Frieri, who has fortified the wobbly back end of their bullpen. But you don't get something for nothing in this game, and scrappy middle infielder Alexi Amarista, part of a trade for Frieri, looks like he has the heart -- and ability -- to be a big-league player. Amarista (two hits, winning RBI) has gotten off to a strong start with the Padres, who figure to give him a shot at their starting second base job.

Cooling off. Mark Trumbo was practically trailing smoke behind him, he was swinging such a hot bat. Primarily a designated hitter prior to Torii Hunter's recent absence, Trumbo also had established himself well in right field, which just might end up being his position next year and beyond. But Saturday was a bit of a rough patch. He went 0-for-4 with a strikeout, stranded a couple runners and bobbled a ball that let a runner reach third base.

The Angels got back into their comfort zone, the National League.

They beat the San Diego 7-2 Friday night at Petco Park behind another strong pitching effort by Jered Weaver and a strong hitting performance by... Jered Weaver? The Angels have the best interleague record in the majors since 2007.

The Good:

Tropical fish. Mike Trout is doing to the major leagues what he did after adjustment periods to both Double-A and Triple-A. He's making it look easy. The Angels' best under-21 player has had multi-hit games in six of his last nine games. He went 3-for-4, including a triple down the left-field line that drove in a run.

Rare sight. In a few years, Jered Weaver probably won't remember another strong performance on the mound (seven good innings). Those have become commonplace for him, especially in the last few years. What he'll remember is the base hit up the middle off Jeff Suppan, the run he scored and the walk he earned. The Angels have some good-hitting pitchers on their staff, but Weaver probably isn't one of them. Now, however, he might end up leading the staff in on-base percentage this year. Oh yeah, he's also 6-1 with a 2.80 ERA.

Thaws. Howie Kendrick snapped an 0-for-19 streak by lining a single to right field in the ninth inning. Vernon Wells is emerging from a year-and-change worth of slump with some of his best hitting as an Angel in the past two weeks. Erick Aybar snapped out of a month-long funk with a couple of hits. The Angels will be a deep lineup if these guys are productive.

The Bad:

Bobby's bat. Now that Chris Iannetta is on the disabled list after wrist surgery, the Angels could fall back into last season's pattern: the catcher's spot in the lineup as a black hole. Bobby Wilson, the No. 1 catcher in Iannetta's stead, hasn't gotten a hit since last weekend. You've got to figure Angels GM Jerry Dipoto has been working the phones to scrounge up an adequate-hitting catcher.

Seriously, San Diego? The Padres average barely three runs per game, making the Angels' lineup look mighty by comparison. Only the Pittsburgh Pirates have scored fewer runs than San Diego, which scrounged up just three hits Friday night. If things continue, manager Bud Black might find things getting uncomfortable.

Held out. The Angels are playing at a National League Park this weekend, which -- of course -- means no designated hitter. It still seems like every effort should be taken to get the best eight hitters on the field. Kendrys Morales certainly falls into that category, but his weekend figures to boil down to two or three pinch-hitting appearances. Angels manager Mike Scioscia told reporters before the game that Albert Pujols is willing to play a little third base and Morales is healthy enought to play first. OK, so why not do it?

The South American nation of Colombia has sent 10 players to the major leagues. The first six were shortstops. The last three have been pitchers.

"Those shortstops had great hands, because our fields had so many rocks in them," said Angels reliever Ernesto Frieri, the ninth Colombian to reach the majors. "They fixed the fields. Now, no shortstops."

Frieri admits his favorite sport to watch is still soccer, which helps explain why Colombia has been less of a pipeline to the majors than neighboring Venezuela or other Caribbean lands such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba or Puerto Rico, where baseball is the No. 1 sport.

Colombia -- specifically, a small town called Sincerin near the colonial city of Cartagena -- is Frieri's home. But for the past 10 seasons, his home away from home had been the San Diego Padres organization. He was the longest-tenured player in the organization before the Padres traded him to the Angels for infielder Alexi Amarista and pitcher Donn Roach early this month.

The Angels play the Padres in San Diego this weekend and Amarista figures to be on the field quite a bit. He might even face Frieri. San Diego released veteran second baseman Orlando Hudson Thursday, opening a door for Amarista.

Frieri has been a key addition to the Angels bullpen, having made five scoreless appearances, virtually all of them in high-pressure situations. Frieri has become the right-handed complement to closer Scott Downs and pitches almost exclusively in the eighth and ninth innings. His acquisition has brought order to the most chaotic part of the team for the first month.

The move also has benefited Frieri's career. He was working the middle innings for the Padres, whose bullpen is deeper than the Angels'.

"The Angels gave me a chance to pitch in close situations and I love it," Frieri said. "I think every Latin pitcher likes that, because we love adrenaline. We're used to pitching in winter ball in front of all those full crowds, screaming the whole game."

ANAHEIM -- C.J. Wilson took the mound Thursday with a bit of a stomach virus, but the nausea he started feeling wasn’t just the result of a bug.

“It was more about how I was throwing,” Wilson said.

The Angels left-hander walked six batters (plus hit one) in less than four innings and, after a while, the rest of the team seemed to pick up on that sloppiness. The result was a pretty bad all-around game of baseball, but – possibly – more of an aberration than a pattern.

This team appears to be doing things more as it expected – Albert Pujols is hitting home runs again, for example – but days like Thursday come along once in a while, even for good teams. So far, the Angels haven’t been a good team, but Thursday doesn’t prove they’re not one now.

“I didn’t set a good tone,” Wilson said. “It was pretty much my fault. I put the defense to sleep out there and maybe the bats, too.”

The Angels -- specifically, Howie Kendrick and Mike Trout -- lost three catchable balls in the sun, leading directly to two runs that chased Wilson early, but generally defense has been a strength for this team. They were baffled by lanky left-hander Chris Sale, but that’s understandable. They haven’t seen him much and Sale has good stuff, including a heavy, mid-90s fastball.

Despite Thursday’s clunker, you get the impression this team could – could – be ready to take off. It helps that their next three series are against the San Diego Padres, Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners. The Angels tend to pound the National League, Seattle is playing horribly and Oakland, while fielding a competitive team, is probably the easiest place to play in baseball with its 8,000 fans per night.

If the Angels are going to make a move that can clean up some of that negative energy they generated from five bad weeks, this trip seems like an appropriate time. So, manager Mike Scioscia decided to go to his favorite bibliographic analogy Thursday: turn the page.

“We’re trying to get momentum. When you lose a game because the other team beats you, you tip your cap and hope to get better from it,” Scioscia said. “We just didn’t give ourselves a chance. Overall, we’re moving forward.”

ANAHEIM -- The Angels seemed dazed by the mid-afternoon sun, losing three fly balls in the glare, and C.J. Wilson was wild in a 6-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox Thursday at Angel Stadium.

The Good:

A Force. Mark Trumbo isn't sneaking up on anyone any more. He hit 29 home runs last year, so there are plenty of pitchers who know the damage he can do. He has never been as hot as he is right now. He's batting .460 with seven doubles and three home runs in his last 13 games. At times, he's hitting balls so hard that the fielder catches the carom quickly enough to hold him to a single.

Is he back? Albert Pujols had his first back-to-back games with a home run, but it was where the balls traveled -- to center field -- that has the Angels sensing his long cold streak might be over. Pujols has 13 RBIs in his last 10 games and his swing finally looks healthy again. He did have one hard ground ball to the left side, but he's keeping his weight back longer and looks dangerous again.

Thievery. On a day when the Angels' inability to catch fly balls may have cost them a game, Vernon Wells partially redeemed the defense by robbing Gordon Beckham of a home run in the eighth inning. Wells timed it well, put his right cleats on the fence and climbed it to keep the ball in the park and send Beckham back to the dugout with his hands on his helmet.

The Bad:

Sun guard. Imagine if this team had played back when night games were a rarity. Games might have lasted until it got dark. Mike Trout and Howie Kendrick (twice) lost balls in the sun. Two of them led to a pair of unearned runs that chased Wilson from the game in the fourth inning. Maybe the Angels should play a few more day games to get their players accustomed to the conditions.

Command. The attribute that sets Wilson apart from Jered Weaver and Dan Haren is that he occasionally loses touch with the strike zone. Wilson had generally kept that tendency in check this season, but Thursday it exploded all over him. Wilson walked six batters and hit Alex Rios with a pitch, pretty much guaranteeing it would be a poor outing. It could have been worse, but he got some clutch outs in each of the first three innings.

Starving Albert. As Pujols warms up, it's going to be essential that the top-of-the-order hitters give him opportunities to carry the team for the first time. Trout and Maicer Izturis never got on base, going 0-for-8. So, each time Pujols batted, the bases were empty. If you're going to suffer through Pujols' dry spells, you may as well maximize his hot streaks.

Big-money contract, new team, new fans, a brutally slow start to the season. Then comes the mounting pressure of all of that. If it sounds familiar to Angels fans, it sounds painful to Vernon Wells.

Like Albert Pujols this season, Wells was that guy last year.

"I understand it first-hand," Wells said. "You never want to go through it, but I think it's a blessing if you're able to go through that, come out the other side and learn from it. When things come easily for you, it feels great, but you never master that ability to get through adversity."

Are we seeing Wells beginning to emerge from a slump that endured through six months of 2011 and had crept into the first five weeks of this season? The last nine games, over which he's hitting .303, may have been his most productive stretch as an Angel. He has already hit six home runs, a mark he didn't reach until June 13 last season, when he wound up with 25.

He said he's "getting there," when asked if he's as locked in as at any time with this team. Like Pujols, he is at his best when he's able to use the whole field. Like Pujols, he got pull-happy for most of 2011 and it choked off his ability to do other things. He hit only 15 doubles, less than half a typical season's worth.

"He's a right-handed pull hitter is what he is, but he has the ability to use more of the field than, at times, he's shown throughout his career," manager Mike Scioscia said. "This is something that plagued him in Toronto and, when he's gotten a grasp of it, he's as productive as any hitter in the league."

Here are lineups for Thursday's 12:35 p.m. game against the Chicago White Sox:

White Sox
Alejandro De Aza CF
Gordon Beckham 2B
Adam Dunn 1B
Paul Konerko DH
Alex Rios RF
A.J. Pierzynski C
Alexei Ramirez SS
Dayan Viciedo LF
Brent Morel 3B

Angels
Mike Trout RF
Maicer Izturis SS
Albert Pujols 1B
Mark Trumbo DH
Howie Kendrick 2B
Vernon Wells LF
Alberto Callaspo 3B
Peter Bourjos CF
John Hester C

As each week and month passes, the Angels feel more like Jerry Dipoto's team and less like Mike Scioscia's team.

The strongest indication of that yet was Tuesday's move -- surprising mostly in its timing -- to fire hitting coach Mickey Hatcher, a longtime friend and longtime teammate of Scioscia's. Hatcher won a World Series with Scioscia as a player on the Dodgers in 1988 and 14 years later, and 30 miles south, as a member of his coaching staff in Anaheim.

We don't even know yet whether Dipoto was the engine for Tuesday's decision. Angels owner Arte Moreno isn't quoted in the news release, but it's quote possible -- maybe even probable -- he had tired of watching his well-paid team ground out, pop up, strike out and fail to get on base at an alarming rate, telling Dipoto to sacrifice Hatcher.

Was it Hatcher's fault the Angels swing so wildly, rarely get on base and seem to tighten up with runners in scoring position? Judging by the comments on this website and others, plenty of fans feel he bore more than a small slice of the blame.

In reality, Hatcher probably was only one small part of the problem, if any part of the problem. It's a classic case. The Angels are so frustrated with Albert Pujols, they fired Mickey Hatcher.

As Dipoto pointed out, though, these moves are largely about opening the clubhouse to some fresh breezes. Maybe a new voice can coax better results than Hatcher's has for the past few seasons.

You have to assume that Tuesday night was a bitter one for Scioscia, the longest-tenured manager in baseball. Scioscia did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Dipoto declined to go into details of his discussion with Scioscia, saying only, "These are difficult conversations to have with Mickey, difficult conversations to have with Mike, difficult conversations to have with yourself."

Alfredo Griffin is the last remaining member of the staff he assembled in 2000, but Hatcher is the first one to leave in circumstances not of his choosing. Joe Maddon and Bud Black left to take promotions managing their own clubs.

Under former GMs Bill Stoneman or Tony Reagins, Tuesday's move seems unlikely, certainly in May. But Dipoto has brought in his own people and has his own vision for this team, one which doesn't always align with the way Scioscia and Hatcher viewed things. He vowed back in November to increase the Angels' emphasis on on-base percentage. Scioscia and Hatcher continued to preach patience only as a means to an end -- getting a good pitch to hit -- not as an end in itself -- a walk.

Dipoto admitted that disconnect was part of Tuesday's move, that the team needed to be better at scoring runs by means other than the "safely hit ball."

Of course, the man in the middle of all this is Pujols, who so far has a cost-to-home run ratio of 240 million-to-one. Mix in one struggling superstar, one new and powerful GM and you get a manager with less ability to stand up for his own guys.

Mike Trout was in fourth grade when Albert Pujols was baseball's most precocious talent, way back in 2001. Trout was a bigger fan of Derek Jeter's at the time.

"I kind of went with the Jersey guy," Trout said.

Now that Trout and Pujols are sharing the same work space -- clubhouses, airplanes and hotels all around the league -- Trout admits it's "definitely a little bit weird," but the 20-year-old outfielder has also gleaned bits of hitting advice from Pujols, who -- you might remember -- used to be a force in the batter's box.

"Once I got to know him and everything, he’s a great guy and he’s always there to pick me up when I’m down," Trout said.

And who knows, this Trout-Pujols pairing could be the force that, finally, leads the Angels out of this strange, early-season morass. Trout has been providing plenty of spark lately, but on Tuesday Pujols finally helped it turn into a fire. The two combined for six hits, three runs and three RBIs in the Angels' 4-0 win over the Oakland A's.

The fact that all of Pujols' hits barely bent the grass shouldn't detract from the concept. The Angels aren't going anywhere this season without production from the upper one-third of their lineup and, at long last, they saw some of it Tuesday, driven by two of the most talented players in the game. Trout's star is just beginning to ascend and Pujols' is showing signs of descending. They're both crucial beacons to the Angels, desperate for offense.

"Balls found some holes for once," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said of Tuesday's 12-hit game.

Pujols still doesn't look right, of course. He's lunging and hitting ball after ball to the left side of the infield. The only difference was that all three of them Tuesday were placed far enough from infielders that Pujols could lumber to first in time.

Trout, on the other hand, looks perfectly right. In his third trip to the major leagues, he looks like he's beginning to force his talent on the rest of the league. Trout has homered three times and stolen three bases in 15 games and is batting .333 in May.

"These are the things Mike does," Scioscia said.

If he keeps doing them and Pujols starts doing them with a measure of consistency, this team might be ready to -- yes, finally -- move forward.

ANAHEIM -- The Angels showed a little more life the second time they faced aging ex-Cy Young winner Bartolo Colon, scraping out 12 hits off him in a 4-0 win at Angel Stadium.

There were some rare signs of life from an offense that, most of this season, has been blazing a trail in not scoring runs. Youngster Mike Trout and struggling superstar Albert Pujols led the way.

The Good:

Strong swimmer. Trout looks like every bit the elite prospect everybody said he was. He flashed his speed while scoring from first on Alberto Callaspo's double in the third inning, stole a base, scored three runs and hit his third home run in 15 games. They brought him up looking for a spark and, since May began, he has provided a fire.

Albert's luck. Say what you will about Pujols and this has been a glacial start by his (or most hitters') standards, but it's true he was hitting into some bad luck. That began to even out Tuesday when Pujols went 3-for-3 with two RBIs in his first three at-bats without hitting a ball out of the infield. For at least one night, Mike Scioscia couldn't say Pujols was hitting balls hard "without a lot to show for it." Tuesday he hit balls softly with a lot to show for it.

Strong start. You could see Ervin Santana beginning to turn his season around even before he snapped his six-game losing last week in Minnesota. After four awful starts to begin the season, Santana has pitched well in his last four. Tuesday was easily his best and, while it came against the worst-hitting team in the league, the A's had been scoring some runs in recent games. From the first through the sixth inning, Santana retired 16 straight batters, which meant the fans got to enjoy the tail end of rush-hour traffic. They gave him an eighth-inning standing ovation nonetheless.

The Bad:

Aybar's struggles. This stretch is reminiscent of the start to Erick Aybar's 2010 season. The shortstop isn't taking advantage of his speed, because he's hitting virtually every ball in the air and his batting average (.187) is starting to make Pujols' look robust. Aybar hit four harmless fly balls and is 0 for his last 11. Aybar has the worst on-base percentage in the major leagues.

Sitting Howie. Howie Kendrick hasn't exactly been killing the ball, but it still feels like he's one of the best handful of hitters the Angels have. When Mike Scioscia sits him, it only seems to exacerbate his offensive struggles. Kendrick got benched Monday after an 0-for-5 night in Texas, his second day off in eight days and his third since April 21. The "rest" produced another 0-fer for Kendrick. The previous time Scioscia gave him a day off, he picked up one hit in his next nine at-bats.

Ambience. At the start of Tuesday's game at 4:07 p.m., it looked as if there were about 15,000 people in the stadium, reminiscent of the late 1990s around here. It filled out a bit and the Angels announced a crowd of 31,762 fans later. But with the team struggling, Angel Stadium has felt like a library most nights this season. Remember when the Angels were trumpeting all those extra tickets sold? Haven't heard about that lately.