Wednesday Halolinks: Hector Santiago is Angels best pitcher

Isn't baseball funny?  Just yesterday I wrote about how nothing went right for the Angels in Monday's loss, and then Tuesday the club does everything right.  I suppose baseball is a lot like life...or as some say, "baseball is life" -- you have your good days and your bad.  Some days you get shutout, the next you score, while we hope our good days, and our favorite team's good days outnumber the bad.

Good day Halolinks:

• Sure, it's early, but Hector Santiago has silently become the Angels best starter this season. In three starts, Santiago has gone 2-1, with a 2.45 ERA.  In a little over 18 inning, the lefty has allowed 13 hits and 6 walks, while striking out seventeen.  Not too shabby: Santiago's resurgence is just what Angels need - angels.com, "Everything was working tonight, all five or six pitches that I throw, I threw for strikes," added Santiago, who struck out eight and gave up just three hits, including a Billy Butler home run in the third inning after the Angels took a 4-0 lead. Santiago threw 101 pitches, and after the Angels made it 10-1 in the sixth, manager Mike Scioscia decided that was enough."
• On the other side of the game, the offense did their part: Giavotella gets the Angels bats going in 14-1 win over A's - The Orange County Register, "It feels great helping this team win," said Giavotella, whose first homer with the Angels put three runs on the board in the second inning. "This team from Day One of spring training has welcomed me with open arms. It’s great to have guys get around you and root for you on the bench."
• First baseman Ike Davis pitches perfect inning of relief for Oakland Athletics in blowout loss, "Davis, who had a 2.25 ERA at Arizona State, retired Collin Cowgill, C.J. Cron and Chris Iannetta on ground balls while throwing just nine pitches."
• Wednesday's game looks to be a pitcher's duel: Oakland Athletics at Los Angeles Angels - April 22, 2015 - MLB.com Preview, "Gray is 2-1 with a 2.68 ERA in six appearances (five starts) against the Angels. Weaver's career mark against the A's is 13-9, 2.94 on 30 starts."
• Always the good soldier, Scioscia explains why the Angels aren't the Human Resource nightmare everyone thinks they are: Mike Scioscia addresses Angels bosses' comments on Josh Hamilton - LA Times, "As the Angels prepared to open their Arizona training facility to Josh Hamilton, Manager Mike Scioscia tried Tuesday to explain that his bosses had criticized baseball's drug policy, and not the troubled outfielder himself, when they expressed outrage at an arbitrator's ruling that Hamilton could not be suspended after a substance-abuse relapse."
• This is only the fourth time in Major League history three grand slams have been hit in a game: Seven HRs, 3 grand slams hit in crazy Reds-Brewers game - USAToday, "The two teams would seem unlikely to combine for that kind of offensive output. The Reds had scored just 13 runs in their last six games combined, and the Brewers 10. The Brewers had just four home runs on the season entering the game and were last in the league in runs and home runs."
• This post has a bunch of videos showing highlights of Statcast.  It's actually pretty cool: Tech-tacular! Nats' walk-off W caps Statcast debut - MLB.com, "Statcast was in full force almost right away, pushing forth revealing data in all stages of the game, and on Tuesday -- with Bob Costas, Hall of Famer John Smoltz and Tom Verducci dissecting the new technology in this showcase game on MLB Network -- plenty of ground was covered."  Here's an example of what information this new technology provides: Statcast top speed: Gordon vs. Hamilton vs. Trout - angels.com, "Trout's no slouch, of course. The reigning American League MVP had the shortest lead -- 10.5 feet -- in the clip of a steal against Oakland, and he still managed to get to a top speed of 20.8 mph."
• Not only does Scott Boras want to remove the personnel decision making from the team's front office to and outside "panel", he thinks the defensive shift teams are using is bad.  Not a bad strategy, but bad because a player is playing out of position.  Agent Scott Boras wants panel to rule on readiness of players prior to end of spring training, "Boras also has strong opinions about defensive shifting. He's against it, for the defender's sake. He believes it forces players to grasp jobs they haven't been trained to master. "The communication is different because there's different people involved and there's fielding ground balls from unique places because you're never trained that way," Boras said of shifts. "I'm afraid it's going to seep into college and youth baseball."
• Your city government is working hard in your best interest: Carson City Council Bypasses Public Vote, Approves $1.7 Billion Stadium, "It isn’t yet clear—and won’t be for several months—what exactly the council members approved, because the project is so light on details. The most salient unknown, of course, is who the hell is going to pay for the stadium. Those are the sort of details normally worked out before the stadium is approved, but after the Inglewood City Council decided they didn’t give a damn what Inglewood residents thought and skipped a public vote, the Carson City Council decided to follow suit."