Teixeira and the Postseason.

Mark Teixeira performed quite admirably in his first postseason appearance.

And why the kid gloves with Teixeira, anyway? No extra-base hits from him in the postseason. Sure, he was on base a ton, but so what? He’s supposed to be in the hitting-the-ball-hard part of the lineup, and to say he disappointed was an understatement.

Teixeira came to the plate 20 times in the post-season, and made only 9 outs. He finished the series with a line of 467/550/467. It’s completely fair to point out that he didn’t deliver an extra base hit. But the fact is that he still put up a 1.017 OPS for the series, by far the best on the team. In addition, he played stellar defense at first base.

In short, he was the Angels’ best player in the series. Calling him a disappointment is not only inaccurate, it’s unfair. It would be like criticizing a starting pitcher for holding the other team scoreless in his starts, but not pitching deep enough into games. Yes, you want the innings, but more importantly you don’t want the other team to score. Do I want want doubles and homers from Teixeira? Absolutely, but first and foremost, I want him to not make outs. And if a guy doesn’t make many outs in a four game series, I’m not going to get on him for failing to hit homers and doubles.

But what jumps out at me is the “blame the best player” mentality. There are a number of reasons the Angels failed again in this post-season. Blaming it on the guy who was one of your top two position players, if not number one, seems like a poor read of the situation. In close games, you can blame every player who didn’t hit a homer every time up if you really want to. If anything, complain about the timing of the singles. None of them came with runners in scoring position (five plate appearances), and his lone RBI was a sac fly. But again, the Angels have highly paid players who failed more often in those situations. His defense, in my opinion, easily made up for his minor offensive shortcomings.

I’m not optimistic about his return the Angels. I haven’t been since the trade. I hope he comes back. But based on the way his teammates seem to react to post-season baseball, I can’t blame him if he heads for what he sees as greener pastures.