Weaver Continues Dominance, Rangers On Ebay. Halolinks.

Rangers can't find their way home in 2-1 loss to Angels - Dallas Morning News
Weaver (8-3) struck out six and walked two in lowering his ERA to 1.70 in eight home starts. His 124 strikeouts lead the AL, and he has 28 in his last three starts while allowing just three walks. "He should be an All-Star," Hunter said. Angels manager Mike Scioscia added, "If he's not, something's wrong. "He has no fear on the mound. He's going to execute a pitch and live with the consequences." The right-hander proved the most effective Angels pitcher in the series against Guerrero, keeping him hitless in three at-bats with a walk Thursday. The former Angel went 6 for 8 with three home runs, including a grand slam, and eight RBI in the first two games. Weaver also contained Josh Hamilton, whose career-high 23-game hitting streak ended with an 0 for 3 performance that included an intentional walk. Weaver retired 10 in a row during one stretch. Rodney intentionally walked Hamilton to load the bases before Nelson Cruz popped to second to end the threat. During Cruz's at-bat, Rodney threw a 2-2 pitch over Mathis' head to the backstop, but he played the carom quickly and Michael Young had to stay at third. "Because it was a fastball, I wasn't able to get that far off the bag in the first place," Young said. "From third base, you don't really have the luxury of seeing which direction it kicks — unless it kicks right back to you. And from my angle, I thought it kicked right back to Mathis. If I had an easy read, I would have been gone. But it was a tough read."

I was curious as to why Young didn't try to score on the wild pitch in the 8th. In m y opinion, he could have easily scored the tying run, but decided to stay on third base. As the above quote states, luckily he didn't have a good angle on where the ball went. Video highlight: Weaver hurls seven shutout frames - Jered Weaver strikes out six Rangers over seven shutout innings, Napoli smacks an RBI double to left field - Mike Napoli extends the Angels' lead with an RBI double to left field, Hunter makes inning-ending grab at wall - Torii Hunter makes an inning-ending grab at the wall, taking a hit away from Justin Smoak, Angels miss turning two - Vladimir Guerrero grounds into an apparent double play but Ian Kinsler is called safe at second (interesting time to stop calling the "vicinity play", but that call was far from the worst call in baseball...check this one out: Twins' tag play - A controversial safe call on a tag play at third in the 10th inning leads to the ejection of Twins manager Ron Gardenhire)

Angels - Royals Series Preview: Don't Believe The Hype - Royals Review
Defensively, UZR has rated the Angels fairly harshly. Again, if you just look at the names on the roster, this wouldn't surprise you. However thanks to a Supreme Court decision in 2001, we're not allowed to talk about anything relating to the Twins or Angels objectively. So just lie back and listen to how awesome they are defensively. The fat dude who got injured (not listed) celebrating a home run was apparently one of their better defenders.

Those plucky Royals fans, trying to talk trash about the Angels. Go back to writing about how you hate your front office.

Royals-Angels Preview - FOX Sports on MSN
The Angels look to continue their solid home play in the opener of a weekend set against the Kansas City Royals on Friday night. Joe Saunders (6-8, 4.88 ERA) looks to build on his last outing and remain perfect against the Royals. The left-hander avoided a third straight loss after he allowed two runs, four hits and struck out a season-high eight in seven innings of a 4-2 home win over Colorado on Saturday. Saunders is just 2-6 with a 6.18 ERA in nine home starts. Kyle Davies (4-6, 6.06) looks to avoid a fourth consecutive loss as he takes the ball for the Royals. The right-hander allowed five runs in seven innings of a 5-3 loss to St. Louis on Saturday to finish June 0-3 with an 8.64 ERA in five starts.

Torii Hunter at Mid-Contract: Angels Money Well Spent? - Mat Gleason - SB Nation Los Angeles
The Torii Hunter signing is the peak accomplishment of Tony Reagins' tenure as Angels General Manager. It was a tacit admission of the mistaken Gary Matthews Jr signing the season before. Many a franchise goes into denial that a sunk cost is going to turn around. Reagins did not. The lore of the signing - it took place at a secret meeting with Torii's agent at a Del Taco in Corona, 30 miles east of Anaheim, no offense to Coronans, but it is the middle of nowhere. And halfway thru a burrito and an iced tea, in a plastic booth, Tony Reagins committed to the biggest contract in franchise history.

Rev Halofan writes about Torii Hunter for the SBN regional site.

Angels owner Arte Moreno: 'We get to showcase our stadium, fans and environment' - Terry Lefton, SportsBusiness Journal
SBJ: What does a person who is a marketer by trade bring to team ownership that another owner might not?
AM: It's about knowing your customers' needs and wants beyond winning. A marketer does the research on what his customers' needs and wants are and is flexible to changing those. It's important to do the research first. The toughest thing in problem solving is understanding the problem, so we hire independent researchers to assess what our brand awareness is and what they like and don't like. That's ongoing. Still, technology makes it relatively easy to gather information. The question is whether you are flexible enough to adjust to what you've learned. ... You have to listen, also. A lot of times businesses get to the place where they feel entitled instead of saying, "You are always welcome."

I don't think I've ever read an interview with Arte Moreno that wasn't interesting...including this one.

Speaking of Scott Kazmir's slider … - latimes.com
Kazmir, who has relied almost exclusively on his fastball and changeup, said his slider felt great in the bullpen Wednesday, but he threw "only about five of them" in the game. This has been a common theme; the slider feels great in the bullpen, but not in the game. "Some of the issues that have plagued Scott," Scioscia said, "have been a little redundant."

That quote from Scioscia is probably the most negative quote I've ever heard him say about one of his players. "Redundant". He must really be pissed. Next he'll be calling Brandon Wood "obtuse".

Guerrero has happy return to Angel Stadium against former team - CBSSports.com Baseball
Guerrero was available because the Angels, given his age (35) and bad knees, were not comfortable offering more than one year when his contract expired following the 2009 season. Guerrero was looking for more but wound up signing with the Rangers for one year and $6.5 million, plus a mutual player and club option for 2011. By the time he signed with the Rangers, the Angels had long since moved on to Hideki Matsui. That's their style during the winter. They move fast and don't waste time. They zero in on who they want, come on strong and essentially attach a deadline. If the player doesn't move, the Angels move on. They did it with CC Sabathia (who signed with the Yankees) and Mark Teixeira (also the Yankees).

I wish I knew how far apart the Angels and Guerrero were this last off season (not rumored, but the "real" story). I do know Guerrero wanted more than $6.5M from the Halos, but how much were the Angels offering?

Rangers may go up for auction, MLB president confirms - Dallas Business Journal
The Texas bankruptcy court-appointed chief restructuring officer has decided an auction of the Texas Rangers should occur, multiple sources tell SportsBusiness Journal. The development emerges, and fits into, earlier news that the spurned bidders for the ballclub have been invited to a mediation session Tuesday with the club and its angry creditors. The sources said the CRO, William Snyder, has already informed Major League Baseball President and COO Bob DuPuy and said league approval will not be a criteria for deciding the best bid. DuPuy confirmed there may be an auction coming for the Rangers, but said if it transpires, MLB would retain its traditional role of being able to approve a bidder. "No one has suggested that any auction occur that in any way obviates MLB's clear and unambiguous right to approve or disapprove any ownership candidate," he wrote in an e-mail. "There has been absolutely no discussion of that with either of the judges involved or the CRO." The CRO, or chief restructuring officer, last week was appointed by the federal bankruptcy court overseeing the team’s bankruptcy, and this week informed DuPuy of his decision that a new auction of the team was necessary. Sources said that when the CRO, William Snyder, met in person with DuPuy on Monday, he communicated that MLB approval would not be a criteria for choosing a winner. One source said what that means is for the premises of the auction, the CRO will assume all parties that were pre-approved to submit bids last year can be approved by the league.

To me, besides the race in the A.L. west, this is the most interesting thing happening in baseball right now. It's also the one thing that has the potential of changing baseball from this point forward. In the above paragraph, Bob DuPuy mentions that baseball will still have the ability to approve the new ownership. This is based on baseball's anti-trust exemption. However, the CRO told DuPuy that baseball's approval was not necessary. If MLB decides to fight for ownership approval, something they might feel they have to do if an "undesirable" owner ends up buying the Rangers (Mark Cuban), they could potentially put their anti-trust exemption status at risk. This could get REAL interesting.

D-Backs dismiss GM Josh Byrnes and manager A.J. Hinch - MLB - SI.com
The Arizona Diamondbacks fired manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Josh Byrnes on Thursday night in a shakeup at the top of a team cemented in last place in the NL West for the second year in a row. Diamondbacks bench coach and ex-major league slugger Kirk Gibson will take over as interim manager for a ballclub that was 31-48, 15 1/2 games back of San Diego entering Thursday's games.

Another one (or two) bites the dust.

July 2 - BR Bullpen
1963 - In one of baseball's most memorable pitching duels, the Giants' Juan Marichal and the Braves' Warren Spahn both hurl 15 scoreless innings before Willie Mays ends the marathon with a homer off Spahnie in the bottom of the 16th giving San Francisco a 1- 0 win.
1980 - Chicago's Ross Baumgarten allows only a 7th-inning single to Rod Carew en route to a one-hit 1 - 0 shutout of the Angels. Baumgarten will finish the season 2-12. It's not like the Angels got beat by a crappy pitcher, he did beat one other team.
Happy b-day:
1964 - Jose Canseco, outfielder; All-Star How does Jose Canseco celebrate his birthday??
R.I.P.:
1929 - Buck Hooker, pitcher (b. 1880) Even the hookers were cheaper back in the olden days.

Dream on Texas, Weaver's on the hill: