Wednesday Halolinks: C.J. Wilson Says Side Matters, Wild Walden Not In Sync

The starter goes out and throws a great game and then the bullpen soils the mound. Reminds me of the 2011 season: Royals 6, Angels 4 - FOX Sports. (I'm pretty sure Wilson is misquoted here and actually said "size" and not "side"). ''You can look at trends, but obviously it's a small sample side,'' Wilson said. ''I've thrown 14 innings. It's not like 100 innings to say this is exactly what's going on. ''He was really, really sharp,'' Royals manager Ned Yost said. ''The ball was exploding out of his hand. I kept looking up there at the radar gun, saying geez that looks 95-96 (mph) and it was 92, but it had tons of life. He kept the ball down, worked both sides of the plate extremely well. He's tough.'' According to the OC Register, it's Wilson's running habit that get the credit: Wilson on the run this spring - The Orange County Register. ""That's why I run before the game: to try make it a little bit harder on my body, to simulate that 80-, 90- or 100-pitch mark," said Wilson, who threw 75 pitches, 48 for strikes. This spring, Wilson is 2-0 with a 0.64 ERA. In 14 innings, he has given up only one run on five hits and two walks with nine strikeouts."

I kind of like Wilson's explanation: "I stayed off Twitter today, so my thumbs were fresh," Wilson said. C.J. Wilson takes a Twitter vacation - ESPN Los Angeles

Sam Miller leads off this post with his pick for favorite move (and it's not from the OCR to B-Pro): The Lineup Card: 10 Favorite Off-Season Moves - Baseball Prospectus.
"1. Chris Iannetta Gets a Halo
In 2011, Albert Pujols produced 3.8 more WARP than Mark Trumbo, and for $246 million the Angels made the upgrade. In 2011, C.J. Wilson produced 4.1 more WARP than Joel Pineiro, and for $77.5 million the Angels made the upgrade. And in 2011, Chris Iannetta produced 3.3 more WARP than Jeff Mathis. The net cost of this upgrade: Just $2 million, plus a young pitcher (Tyler Chatwood) who PECOTA projects to have the very lowest WARP of the 955 pitchers we ran through the system this year."

MORE LINKS AFTER THE BREAK...

The Angels had 25 blown saves last season, ten by Walden: Walden feels good, but endures a rocky outing - angels.com. "Mike Scioscia also noted: "It didn't look like he was in sync in his delivery. It looked like he was feeling for some stuff. The ball wasn't coming out like we know it can, and he was missing some spots. He had trouble putting some guys away, and that was what got him today."

The Angels are now offering discounted tickets for seats on the first base side of the field. Bring your own glove: Photographers beware: Mark Trumbo is playing third base - HardballTalk. According to a tweet from Mark Saxon: "Mark Trumbo just sailed throw to Albert Pujols, nailing a photographer by the Angels dugout in the back of the neck. 3rd E for Trumbo at 3B" Watch the neck meat!

Angels fans are giggling a little, but Dave Cameron says this isn't a big deal: Neftali Feliz Leaves Game With Sore Shoulder - FanGraphs Baseball. "However, the Rangers have the ability to be cautious here. They have the deepest starting staff in baseball, and it wouldn’t be overly challenging for them to let Alexi Ogando or Scott Feldman begin the year in the rotation if Feliz needed more time to get stretched out."

The things you can do when they pay you a lot of money: Want: Drew Storen’s Batmobile - Yahoo! Sports. "...kudos are in order for Washington Nationals pitcher Drew Storen, a big Batman fan who went and murdered out a 2010 Nissan GTR so it would resemble the Batmobile."

Looks like the newest member of the American League West division didn't have a choice: Lance Berkman Accuses Commissioner Of Extortion - Baseball Nation. "If he called me, I would tell him," Berkman said. "I think that's exactly what it was. To tell (Crane), 'We're going to hold the sale of the team up until you guys agreed to switch?' It just happened that the Astros were being sold at an optimal time for that to happen." As I understand these things, extortion (or blackmail) is when I threaten you with something negative unless you do something for me. That's not really what happened here. Jim Crane could have walked away at any point, and would have lost nothing except a lot of his time and however many millions of dollars he spent in the process of submitting his bid for the Astros.