Interestingly, Jon Garland always has loved monkeys.
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It’s his sisters and mother who hate them.
The Angels needed their famed video mascot–the Rally Monkey–after the White Sox jumped to a 3-0 lead Friday night in the first inning of Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. But its appearance before the home team came to bat in the eighth and again in the ninth didn’t take.
Garland, who was making his first start since Oct. 1 against Cleveland, when he earned his 18th victory, enjoyed the early cushion and, save for Orlando Cabrera’s two-out, two-run homer in the sixth inning, cruised to the 5-2 complete-game victory to give the White Sox a 2-1 lead in the series.
Garland was masterful in his first career postseason appearance. He allowed just four hits while striking out seven and walking one in his first complete game since Sept. 4 against Detroit. The feat took place in front of his mother Vikki, sisters Kerri and Kim, his grandfather and girlfriend Lovie Jung, who plays second base on the U.S. gold-medal softball team.Garland, who had manager Ozzie Guillen’s permission to stay this weekend at his mother’s home in Grenada Hills, an hour north of Anaheim, elected to avoid the traffic and stay at the team hotel in Anaheim. Pitching in Southern California, Vikki said, made no difference to her son.
“At this point, he just wants to get out there,” she said before having lunch with her son Friday. “They could be playing on the moon and I don’t think he’d care. He just wants to participate.”
Garland admits the West Coast “has been kind of bad for us,” and he personally had gone 2-6 lifetime with a 4.91 ERA against the Angels, including 0-2 with a 6.92 ERA this season going into Friday’s game.
“We’ve been snakebit in Anaheim,” Vikki concurred. “That’s why I think this is the perfect stage for everything to change.”
Vikki Garland, a single mom who coached her son through his teenage years, even catching him as he bruised her kneecaps and ankles, said her son has clearly come into his own this season with career bests in wins (18), innings pitched (221), ERA (3.50), strikeouts (115), complete games (three) and shutouts (three).
“I think he feels comfortable, I think he feels he has a pretty good idea what he’s doing out there and what he wants to do,” she said. “It has finally clicked for him. A lot of things had to happen. His defense [behind him] got a lot better and that made a big difference.
“I think he has reached the point to where he can say, `Yes, I do belong here, I know what I’m doing, I do belong.’ Everybody wants to feel that way, no matter what you do. And it’s definitely more enjoyable when you win.”
Through five scoreless innings in Game 3, Garland was on his way to a gem, allowing just two hits while striking out five and walking one.
The biggest threat through five for Garland was a two-out double by Darin Erstad in the Angels’ second, but Erstad was nailed at third on the relay from right fielder Jermaine Dye to Tadahito Iguchi to Joe Crede to end the inning.
Then with one out in the sixth, Adam Kennedy singled. After Chone Figgins flied to left, Orlando Cabrera drove a home run to left field to draw the Angels within 5-2.
The Angels usually employ the Rally Monkey in the sixth inning if they are trailing by three runs or less, a possibility that made Garland’s mother and sister Kerri laugh.
As a small boy growing up with two older sisters, Jon’s favorite companion was a stuffed monkey that he would use to satisfy his competitive urges by seeing how many kicks it would take to get across their kitchen.
“Over and over he’d do it,” Kerri Garland said, “until my mom got so tired of the game that she hid the monkey in a hole in the wall.”
Vikki Garland, never an Angels fan despite the geography, was reminded that if the monkey appeared, it would be a good thing for the Sox.
“I don’t want to see it at all,” she said of the annoying custom. “I want to put it through the wall.”
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