HumpLinks: What the Hector? Santiago continues to surprise.

Hector Santiago continues to show off some serious mound skills. He hurled 7 full innings and gave up just 1 earned run off of 4 hits, leading the Halos and their rediscovered Offense of Anemia to a 3-2 victory.

The play of the game was Aybar's sneaky base running to avoid a Josh Donaldson tag and reach third base safely, putting him into position to score the eventual winning run on David Freese's subsequent sac fly.  [Remember everyone, Rule 5.09(b)(1) clearly states that "A runner’s base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely." the path is NOT a straight line from base to base. So Aybar could have been out in left field at the time Donaldson attempted to turn and tag him. Totally legal. Totally smart. Totally win.]

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• Word is that MLB is unhappy with the dugout antics of Josh Donaldson on Monday..........

• Two games on the stuff under their belt, and the Angels are reporting that the new Rogers Centre turf still sucks. Remember, this stuff is supposed to tighten up as it gets beaten down. Kind of like what is supposed to happen with the Blue Jays, I suppose.............

• It turns out that the best way to keep Matt Joyce out of the lineup is to let Matt Joyce be the one who sets his schedule. Matt Joyce late to Angels day game he thought was at night. "...Matt Joyce has had a terrible start to 2015, and his season got even worse on Monday with an embarrassing gaffe. Joyce thought the Angels' day game on Monday against the Toronto Blue Jays was a night game, and was scratched from the starting lineup after showing up late to the ballpark."...........

• Matt Shoemaker has flipped himself into a fly ball pitcher. "As of Monday, Shoemaker has the lowest ground ball rate among qualified starters at 28.2 percent....only Jeff Samardzija has had a larger decrease in ground ball rate; his decrease was by 13.8 percentage points, while Shoemaker's decrease has been 13.7 percentage points. In other words, Shoemaker almost ties the leader in terms of decreased ground ball rate. It's been a sharp decrease in ground balls."  That keep Shoemaker one step ahead of the posse, i guess. It also means that he is smart enough to know his opponents and exploit what it is that they do. C.J. Wilson should try to be that smart..............

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• Wow. The past few days have been great for healthcare providers. Drew Pomeranz with a shoulder injury........Victor Martinez with knee problems................Masahiro Tanaka is starting his rehab assignment..........Hyun-Jin Ryu will probably have season-ending shoulder surgery..........Jason Werth goes on DL with a wrist injury..............Corey Dickerson to the DL with plantar fasciitis.............Will Meyers to the DL with a wrist injury..........Drew Smyly fighting off shoulder surgery.............Chris Tillman fighting back stiffness............. And we end up with a scary stat. There are more than 100 MLB players currently on the DL.

• Ballpark food continues to get crazier and crazier. Soon we will see pizza with hot dogs baked into the crust............

• Oakland is a catastrophe so far. Billy Beane gutted the team in the offseason. Observe the power to be derived when spin-meister meets stats-culture and the audience attention is diverted away from obvious...........

• Kris Bryant is building the best bachelor pad in Chicago. And it starts with the amazing factoid that somebody makes display cases for Major League Baseball bases..........

• Kid goes to ball game. Kid takes fake ID's. Kid declares himself to be a big man, gets drunk. Kid turns out to be a jackass. What a surprise. Kid banished from baseball. The end............Well, almost. Someday he might actually grow up. Probably into this guy.............

• It's baseball, man. Don't mess with our traditions. One of those is the singing of the National Anthem before a game. Every game. Every day. No exceptions. Not even the third game of the same day in a softball tournament. And if you organizers think otherwise, the fans will take over and sing it without you............

• Fox Sports One and ATT Uverse are still at odds, and FSW is getting pissier and pisser about it.

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