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SATURDAY ANGELS ROUNDUP: No Deadline Deals, Angels Still Win

Up next for the Angels: Saturday at Minnesota - Los Angeles Times
Joe Saunders vs. Anthony Swarzak

Angels score 6 runs in the 11th, beat Twins 11-5 - Yahoo! Sports
The Los Angeles Angels have come up with a pretty successful formula as of late: fall behind, rally, win. Friday night wasn’t any different for the AL West leaders. This time, Los Angeles, after tying the game in the eighth, scored six runs in the top of the 11th inning and recorded their major league-leading 34th comeback victory, 11-5 over the Minnesota Twins.

Angels lower the boom on Twins, 11-5 - Los Angeles Times
The comeback took Santana off the hook but did little to allay the team's concerns about the right-hander, a 2008 All-Star who missed two months this season because of elbow injuries and is now 3-6 with a 7.31 earned-run average in 12 starts.

Guerrero, Hunter take batting practice - angelsbaseball.com
Torii Hunter and Vladimir Guerrero took early batting-practice swings on Friday at the Metrodome, with Guerrero "getting close" to returning to the Angels' designated-hitter role, manager Mike Scioscia said.
"I felt good," Hunter said. "I'm getting there."
Guerrero, standing nearby, grinned. "Me too," he said.

Looks like the Angels will soon make a trade after all, Guerrero and Hunter for Reggie Willits and Gary Matthews Jr.

Team Reports - MLB at CBSSports.com
The Angels finished the month of July with a .316 batting average and 185 runs scored. Both led the majors for the month. The 185 runs were the most they had scored in the month of July since scoring 201 during July 1995.

Team Reports 2 - MLB at CBSSports.com
IF Brandon Wood was demoted to Class AAA Salt Lake before Friday's game. Wood was 1-for-17 in eight games (five starts) in his second stint with the Angels this season. The lone hit was a home run off Yankees LHP Andy Pettitte in his first game after being promoted. Four of his five starts came at first base, a position he had not played before this season.

The combination of Wood's demotion and the Angels optioning RHP Bobby Mosebach to Class AAA Salt Lake after Wednesday's game created two roster spots. IF Sean Rodriguez and C Bobby Wilson were promoted from Salt Lake to fill them. Rodriguez gives the Angels a reserve at several positions including all three outfield positions where both Juan Rivera and Robb Quinlan are dealing with hamstring issues.

Team Reports 3 - MLB at CBSSports.com
When all was said and done, a lot more was said than done. Despite being deeply involved in trade talks surrounding Roy Halladay and Heath Bell right up until Friday's non-waiver trade deadline, the Angels came up empty as that deadline passed. "We had conversations with clubs this morning and yesterday. Ultimately, there was not a match that made sense for both clubs in any of those cases," Angels GM Tony Reagins said. "It really came down to not (finding) the best fit for either party, for the Angels or for the clubs we were talking to.

DEADLINE ANGELS REVIEW-

Angels come up short in trade talks - angelsbaseball.com
"I know everything that was explored," Scioscia said before the Angels, carrying a three-game American League West lead over Texas, faced the Twins to kick off a six-game road trip. "Tony spent a lot of time trying to improve our club at the deadline -- and will continue to do so.

Angels front office with a big swing and miss - Angels blog - OCRegister.com
They kept saying before the deadline that teams were forcing buyers to overpay. OK, fine. So, overpay. Veteran relievers George Sherrill, Joe Beimel and John Grabow all got traded near the deadline. Are the teams that got them doomed to failure in coming seasons? Doubtful. The question is this: Did GM Tony Reagins waste their time going after the moon – Roy Halladay – when they only needed a rock. The problem wasn’t that the Angels needed so much. It’s that they needed so little.

Did Angels make mistake in not making a deal? Time will tell - OCRegister.com
The failure to pick up a setup reliever in a time in which George Sherrill, Joe Beimel and Rafael Betancourt were dealt for minor league players is the one more likely to haunt. General manager Tony Reagins wouldn't part with the top kids, which include pitchers Trevor Bell and Trevor Reckling and outfielder Peter Bourjos. But there are others on the Class-A level, such as pitchers Tyler Chatwood and Ryan Chaffee, who stayed put, too. "We found that a lot of organizations like the same young players in our system than we do," Reagins said. "We were presented with some deals that might have strengthened us for the short term but would definitely have weakened us for the long term."

Tony Reagins strikes out in bid for pitchers - Los Angeles Times
Angels General Manager Tony Reagins went down swinging Friday, going right up to the 1 p.m. non-waiver trade deadline in a furious effort to acquire star pitcher Roy Halladay from Toronto and closer Heath Bell from San Diego. It wasn't much consolation for the Angels, who remain at least one dominant starter and one shut-down reliever away from a championship-caliber pitching staff.

DEADLINE DEALS - Here's a roundup of different sites' analysis of yesterday's trades:

Trade Tracker - CBSSports.com
Deals that went down prior to yesterday's deadline

MLB trade deadline buzz: - MLB News - FOX Sports on MSN
MLB trade deadline buzz: What went down

Breaking down MLB’s big deals - nbcsports.msnbc.com
Breaking down MLB’s big deals. Who went where at the deadline.

Expert: Jays, White Sox wilt under deadline pressure - nbcsports.msnbc.com
Los Angeles Angels: What's going on in Anaheim? The Angels pitching staff is 12th in the AL in ERA — that's right, 12th; and when was the last time that happened? — yet they did nothing to upgrade their staff. Not even a reliever — although they did at least make runs at Halladay and Heath Bell. That's placing a lot of faith in unproven Kevin Jepsen and Jason Bulger — and it leaves no sure answers for Mike Scioscia, who got used to having Scot Shields and Frankie Rodriguez at the end of the games.

Trade deadline champs and chumps - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
Losers: Los Angeles Angels. There is still the August waiver period, so GM Tony Reagins still has a limited opportunity to upgrade. But as well as the Angels are playing, does anyone really think they can beat the Yankees or Red Sox in October?

Dodgers, Angels make risky bets - Los Angeles Times
As for today, those kids have become chips in a World-Series-size gamble. The first-place Dodgers and Angels are betting a championship on them.

LaRoche Traded For Casey Kotchman - FanGraphs Baseball
Maybe Bobby Cox doesn’t like Kotchman or Frank Wren wanted to add some left-handed pop, but this is basically a tit-for-tat deal, and tat is a free agent at the end of the season. Unless there’s something beyond the surface here, I’m not really sure I get the move for the Braves.

Philadelphia Phillies vs. San Francisco Giants - Live MLB GameTrax - FOX Sports on MSN
Lee pitched a four-hitter, carrying a no-hit bid into the sixth inning and even adding two hits with the bat, and the Phillies felt an immediate impact two days after acquiring the left-hander from Cleveland, beating the San Francisco Giants 5-1

Phillies trade pays off in first game. Four prospects? Four prospects!

Roster mystery revealed: Wood optioned to triple-A Salt Lake - Angels Unplugged - Los Angeles Times
"I got traded to the Bees," said Wood, who was sent back to Salt Lake to clear a second roster spot.

Brandon, we hardly knew ye.

Trial date set for man charged in Adenhart killing - CBSSports.com Baseball
A Nov. 9 trial date has been scheduled for a man charged in the drunk-driving crash that killed Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others. Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard Toohey on Friday also scheduled a Sept. 11 pretrial hearing for Andrew Thomas Gallo.