Make no mistake about it, I am not an Angels fan – never have been, never will be. That being said, I am – and always have been – a big fan of 13-year former Dodger and 18-year Angels manager Mike Scioscia. I also attended Game-2 of the 2002 World Series between the Angels and the hated San Francisco Giants at The Big-A, but did so primarily to share the World Series experience with my (then) eight-year-old son Tim. (Note: I was nine when my father took my brothers and me to Game-3 of the 1963 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees at Dodger Stadium).

There is little doubt that every Dodger fan is fully aware that the 58-year-old Upper Darby, Pennsylvania native, three-time World Series champ (twice as a Dodger player, once as the Angels manager), two time All-Star and two-time manager of the year is the longest-tenured manager in the MLB. Most Dodger fans are also probably aware that his regular-season wins (1,066) and losses (878), postseason wins (21) and losses (24), and winning percentage (.548) are the highest of any manager in team history.

On Tuesday night, the veteran manager and former beloved Dodger catcher used a little of his National League lineage to pull off an exciting 10th-inning 6-5 win over the Texas Rangers in front of 34,044 fans at Angel Stadium. And although I wasn’t watching the game or even following it on MLB’s Gameday (that ‘not an Angels fan’ thing), how the Angels victory went down quickly made its way onto Twitter, including a brief video clip of the unlikely but impressive win.

Down 5-2, Angels second baseman Danny Espinosa led off the bottom of the ninth with a home run to left-center, his second of the season, both of which have come in the ninth inning. After Angels pinch-hitter Ben Revere struck out, third baseman Yunel Escobar doubled to left but was unable to advance on right fielder Cole Calhoun’s fly out to center.

Down to their last strike, Angels superstar and two-time AL MVP Mike Trout did his Mike Trout impersonation and doubled to right to score Escobar. Not to be outdone, three-time NL MVP Albert Pujols followed with a single into the left-center field gap to score Trout and tied the game at 5-5.

If you thought the bottom of the ninth was exciting, the bottom of the 10th will blow you away.

After a potential home-run-robbing catch by Trout in the top half of the inning, Angels left fielder Cameron Maybin led off the bottom of the 10th with a walk. This was followed by a weird play in which Angels first baseman Jefry Marte hit a ball into the dirt in front of Rangers catcher Robinson Chirinos. Although the play at first base was extremely close, Marte was ruled out for interfering with Chirinos’ throw. This was followed by an Espinoza single to right which allowed Maybin to take third.

With no outs and the winning run 90-feet away, Scioscia reached into his National League bag of tricks and had back-up catcher Carlos Perez drop a squeeze bunt down the first base line. The bunt was absolutely perfect and the only thing that Chirinos and Rangers first baseman Mike Napoli could do was hope that it would roll foul.

It did not.

Angels catcher Carlos Perez lays down the perfect… absolutely perfect squeeze bunt in the bottom of the 10th inning the give the Angels the unlikely walk-off win.
(Photo credit – Jae C. Hong. Click on image to view video)

The play cause Angels television play-by-play man Victor Rojas to holler out his signature phrase “Drive home safely!” as he always does on an Angels walk-off win.

The bottom line is that you can take Mike Scioscia out of the National League, but you can’t take the National League out of Mike Scioscia.

Good call, Skip.

Is it time for Dodger baseball yet?