TuesdoLinks: CJ can't juke Canadian jam

Angels offense picks up the pace, but pitching fails to pass through Customs.

By Stirrups May 19, 2015, 4:00am PDT

The official line for yesterday's game appears to be that the LAA bats have woken up, and that middle relief failed them yesterday. The unofficial line - ahem...mine - would be that C.J. Wilson returned to form - 2014 form - and crapped everywhere except the strike zone which he is paid to master, while Mike Trout went 0 for 5. Wilson barfed up 10 hits and a pair of walks, burning through 98 pitches in only 5 innings. For that, he barfed up 4 runs in the second inning and ran out of gas before even getting to take a sniff of the 6th inning. The 6th inning is where Mike Morin and Vinnie Pestano joyced up the game to the Blue Jays. Meanwhile, although Trout left but a single man on base – so you cannot blame him for failing to drive in the runs necessary to overwhelm the LAA pitching moribundity – it does mean that Trout was not on base himself when the three guys batting behind him went 5 for 14. The Angels lost 10-6. With the 10AM PDT start, maybe that all happened too early for you to have suffered through it.

Mike Scioscia has a formula. It worked very well once. That was 12 years ago. It has made sporadic appearances of glory since, but it has grown into a single-minded obsession. The formula kinda goes something like this: ( (6-z)xSt))+((1xz)xL))+(1xSu)+(1xC) = W, where (St)=starter, (L)=long relief, (Su)=setup man, and (C)=closer. And (z)=innings less than 6 that the starter cannot complete. Well, apparently, the (L) factor has taken a dump this year, and Sosh is busy at the chalk board as Middle innings prove tricky for Angels to bridge. According to the article: "... he has a perfect solution. 'Hopefully,' Scioscia said, 'it's our starting pitcher....Any time they can get the 19th or 20th out that takes a lot of the pressure off that seventh inning. " So, yeah, Sosh is adapting. His new target formula is (7xSt)+(1xSu)+(1xC)+(pray for no need to ever call on "L") = W.

Chris Iannetta went 3 for 4 yesterday with a home run (putting him on a pace for 4 for the entire year). That makes him 6 for 11 across his last three starts, which is solid enough to screw up the opportunities for an up-and-coming Carlos Perez. Iannetta starting to rediscover stroke. " 'I knew I wasn't going to go the whole season without hitting,' Iannetta said. 'I knew it was only a matter of time.' " Time is the operative word, there, Chris. I can think of quite a few times this season when one of those hits would have actually mattered....Anyway, we all know what this means (veteran...veteran...veteran) when it comes to starting chances for Iannetta going forward: "The Angels had started Carlos Perez in 10 out of 13 games behind the plate, but Iannetta has now started two of the last three. It’s a safe bet he’ll be back in the lineup Tuesday." Because (veteran veteran) it's important to remember that it was a (veteran veteran) Mike Scioscia who was the elder, proven, backstop who lost his spot to an up-and-coming Mike Piazza, rendering the (veteran veteran) Scioscia expendable (veteran bitter veteran). This is a lesson not ever to be forgotten.

Josh Donaldson is still the thorn in the Halo side that he showed he was during his Oakland days. In the 6th inning there was a shouting match that all began with the Angels objecting to Donaldson ducking under a pitch and inducing the ump to call a ball on a pitch they felt should have been at the top of the zone, then went through a brief spat with Donaldson shouting back at the LAA dugout, and finally ended up with more shouting that you might have witnessed as the plate umpire began barking back at Sosh. And Mayhem captures the bright moment when Donaldson demonstrates that he still retains some of that Oakland asshattedness through it all. By the way, the pitch that started it all is #2 below:

Baseball is dying? Don't be stupid: Regionally-televised baseball is kicking ass versus nationally broadcast NHL and NBA playoffs...........

Billy Beane blew up his team in the offseason and rebuilt a new experiment. How is that working out? Well, the way to ensure a victory over the A's is to let them get within one run............So, yeah Angels fans world-wide, enjoy the dumpster fire they are going through up there!

Yeah. This. Baseball actually has an official, formal, process for hiring key front office personnel. Instituted by Uncle Bud, that rule mandates that the franchise make sure to seek out and consider minority candidates for all openings. And the rapidity with which the Brewers and Marlins flipped their field manager shows that teams aren't even paying lip service to the rule. Manfred appears to be on his way to Roger Goodell, Junior.

Lance McCullers made his MLB debut with the Astros yesterday and didn't achieve the greatest of pitching success. But he can always say that he pitched a hell of a lot better than C.J. Wilson pitched on the same day, and McCullers had better shoes. Much, much better shoes.

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