By Marc Topkin, Times Staff Writer

In Print: Monday, June 6, 2011

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TEMPE, Ariz. (AP)—

Angels starter Scott Kazmir got his work in. Several of the Milwaukee hitters got their batting averages up, too.

Yuniesky Betancourt hit a three-run homer and the Brewers roughed up Kazmir on Thursday during an 11-8 victory over the Los Angeles Angels.

Kazmir allowed 10 runs, eight of them earned, and eight hits in five innings. For the spring, his ERA soared to 7.79.

Kazmir, 9-15 with a 5.94 ERA for the Angels in 2010, made his fifth Cactus League start and admitted this outing was discouraging.

“Of course,” Kazmir said. “You’ve go to keep going out there. I felt like I pitched better than the last couple of outings.”

“I felt like I threw the ball well,” said Kazmir, who figures to be the Angels’ No. 5 starter again this season. “I felt like I was attacking the strike zone. A couple of things didn’t go my way and it snowballed. That’s baseball. You’ve got to have luck on your side. They were putting pretty good swings on.”

Chris Gomez, Craig Counsell and Erick Amonte each had two of the 13 Brewers’ hits. Betancourt’s first homer this spring, highlighted a four-run first inning.

Gomez doubled in the first, then tripled and scored in a four-run second.

Randy Wolf, 13-12 with a 4.17 ERA in 34 starts for the Brewers in 2010, made his fifth start of the spring. He allowed six hits and four runs over 5 1-3 innings.

Peter Bourjos and Maicer Izturis hit back-to-back homers off Wolf in the fifth.

Brandon Wood added a two-run homer in the eighth off Mark DiFelice, his fourth of the spring.

NOTES: Angels manager Mike Scioscia wants to see more from Kazmir. “He’s made progress, but he still hasn’t shown that he’s broke through whatever it is that’s holding him back from getting back to where he was,” Scioscia said. “Some of the things that plagued him today are the stuff we’ve seen, like (not) putting hitters away. … You can look back and say that his linescore is ugly, but we’ve got to see as they get into the regular season. The consistency wasn’t there. We’ll see where this leads. Right now he’s got to put some pitches together with consistency.” … Brewers 3B Casey McGehee left the game in the first inning after being hit by Kazmir on the right kneecap.

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP)—Angels starter Scott Kazmir(notes) got his work in. Several of the Milwaukee hitters got their batting averages up, too.

Yuniesky Betancourt(notes) hit a three-run homer and the Brewers roughed up Kazmir on Thursday during an 11-8 victory over the Los Angeles Angels.

Kazmir allowed 10 runs, eight of them earned, and eight hits in five innings. For the spring, his ERA soared to 7.79.

Kazmir, 9-15 with a 5.94 ERA for the Angels in 2010, made his fifth Cactus League start and admitted this outing was discouraging.

“Of course,” Kazmir said. “You’ve go to keep going out there. I felt like I pitched better than the last couple of outings.”

“I felt like I threw the ball well,” said Kazmir, who figures to be the Angels’ No. 5 starter again this season. “I felt like I was attacking the strike zone. A couple of things didn’t go my way and it snowballed. That’s baseball. You’ve got to have luck on your side. They were putting pretty good swings on.”

Chris Gomez, Craig Counsell(notes) and Erick Amonte each had two of the 13 Brewers’ hits. Betancourt’s first homer this spring, highlighted a four-run first inning.

Gomez doubled in the first, then tripled and scored in a four-run second.

Randy Wolf(notes), 13-12 with a 4.17 ERA in 34 starts for the Brewers in 2010, made his fifth start of the spring. He allowed six hits and four runs over 5 1-3 innings.

Peter Bourjos(notes) and Maicer Izturis(notes) hit back-to-back homers off Wolf in the fifth.

Brandon Wood(notes) added a two-run homer in the eighth off Mark DiFelice(notes), his fourth of the spring.

NOTES: Angels manager Mike Scioscia wants to see more from Kazmir. “He’s made progress, but he still hasn’t shown that he’s broke through whatever it is that’s holding him back from getting back to where he was,” Scioscia said. “Some of the things that plagued him today are the stuff we’ve seen, like (not) putting hitters away. … You can look back and say that his linescore is ugly, but we’ve got to see as they get into the regular season. The consistency wasn’t there. We’ll see where this leads. Right now he’s got to put some pitches together with consistency.” … Brewers 3B Casey McGehee(notes) left the game in the first inning after being hit by Kazmir on the right kneecap.

By Rob Neyer – National Baseball Editor

Read More: Scott Kazmir (P – ANA), Los Angeles Angels

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Mar 24, 2011 - You know what’s fun sometimes? Assuming the best.

For example, considering just the last three years, here’s the best we’ve seen from each of the Orange County Angels’ five starting pitchers:

Okay, so there aren’t any 20-game winners in there. Nor even a 17-game winner. But I’ll go to war with those those strikeout-to-walk ratios any day and usually I’ll win.*

* And by the way, those 3.49 ERAs are not typos. Statistics are funny that way sometimes.

Of course, we can come up with almost anything if we cherry-pick. Weaver’s chosen season is 2010, which is encouraging but also was far better than anything he’d done before. Kazmir’s and Santana’s seasons are 2008; Haren’s and Pineiro’s, 2009.

And to be quite frank, there’s no reason to think Kazmir or Santana will every pitch as well again.

Kazmir, especially, might never pitch well again at all. He just doesn’t throw nearly as hard as he used to, or with as much control (never a strong suit anyway). In 2008, Kazmir struck out nearly 10 hitters per nine innings. He needed a high strikeout rate to succeed, because he also had a high walk rate.

Well, he’s still got that high walk rate … but last season didn’t manage even six strikeouts per nine innings. He’s still only 27, but that calamitous decline in strikeouts suggests that he’ll never be an effective starting pitcher again, and soon it will be far too easy to forget that Scott Kazmir once (in 2007) led the American League with 239 strikeouts.

Unfortunately, the Angels aren’t exactly loaded with top-shelf pitching prospects, which is why Kazmir’s getting another shot in the rotation this spring. Well, that and the $14.5 million the Angels still owe him.

Also unfortunately, there’s little reason to think Santana will recapture his past glories, either. While his 3.92 ERA last season looks decent enough, his underlying performance was little different from that of 2009, when he posted a 5.03 mark. Santana just hasn’t been the same since suffering a sprained ligament in his pitching elbow early in 2009, and it’s highly possible that his loss of arm strength is permanent.

Santana has to pitch, though. The Angels need his innings, plus he’s still got $20 million coming to him over the next couple of years.

Essentially, Weaver and Haren both should be very good and perhaps excellent this season, and Pineiro decent enough if he’s healthy (usually a real question with him). So the important question here isn’t if Santana and Kazmir will pitch well. They almost certainly will not. The real question is if Santana and Kazmir will pitch so poorly that they’ll balance the excellence Weaver and Haren.

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TEMPE, Ariz. — Jhoulys Chacin was sharp again for the Colorado Rockies.

Chacin allowed three hits and a run in four innings and the Rockies topped the Los Angeles Angels 8-1 on Wednesday.

He walked two with a strikeout in his second spring start.

Chacin went 9-11 with a 3.28 ERA in 21 starts with Colorado in 2010 as a rookie.

In his previous start, Chacin worked two perfect innings against Arizona with a strikeout.

“In the first inning, his fastball was getting away from him,” Colorado manager Jim Tracy said. “What you like to see is he adjusted it.”

Angels starter Scott Kazmir made his third spring start and pitched out of several jams.

Kazmir, 9-15 with a 5.94 ERA in 2010, made his third spring start Wednesday.

He went three innings, allowing an unearned run, and five hits, four walks and

a strikeout.

The Angels are trying to get Kazmir to simplify his delivery in the hopes of returning him to his All-Star form with Tampa Bay a few seasons ago.

Colorado starter Jhoulys Chacin allowed three hits and a run in four innings and the Rockies topped the Los Angeles Angels 8-1 on Wednesday.

He walked two with a strikeout in his second spring start.

Chacin went 9-11 with a 3.28 ERA in 21 starts with Colorado in 2010 as a rookie.

In his previous start, Chacin worked two perfect innings against Arizona with a strikeout.

Angels starter Scott Kazmir made his third spring start and pitched out of several jams.

Kazmir, 9-15 with a 5.94 ERA in 2010, made his third spring start Wednesday.

He went three innings, allowing an unearned run, and five hits, four walks and a strikeout.

Kazmir allowed an unearned run in the first but pitched out of a jam. His errant pickoff throw while trying to get Dexter Fowler at second sent him to third. Fowler then scored on a wild pitch with Jason Giambi batting.

The Angels tied the game in the second when Mark Trumbo doubled to start the inning and scored on Bobby Wilson’s infield single.

The Rockies broke open a 1-1 game with seven runs off Angels left-hander Trevor Reckling in the eighth. Ben Paulsen hit his first spring homer, a two-run shot, in the inning.

Reckling allowed six hits and seven runs, all earned, in two innings, raising his spring ERA to 16.50.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)