TWOsdoLinks: Two games played, now two games up!

The Angels front orifice got pretty serious in their efforts to fix the field problem caused by that rare phenomenon known in many places as "rain", combined with a turf not constructed to deal with this sort of wet stuff. They brought in a giant blow dryer to blast the grass, turning all the giant puddles into small puddles that the late-arriving sun could deal with. It could have been worse, I suppose. They could have just chosen to douse it all with gasoline and set it on fire. Wait. What? You saying that really happens? Who the hell thought up that idea, and how the heck did they convince everybody else that it would be a good idea???

Anyway, the Halos broke out the brooms and swept the BoSux right back out of town, taking both games yesterday and all four games of the weekend series to kick off the back half of 2015. But we can't let the trash truck roll by and empty the dumpster full of chowds without mocking the jerkoff  moment of David "pimp my impertinent ass" Ortiz. Hey, Papi, scoreboard. When you snuck that pitch into the second row, you guy were down 21 runs to 1 on the way to 4 straight ass-kickings.

The Pujols and Trout home run race is getting to be great. With Pujols hitting 3 home runs yesterday and tying, then passing, Mike Schmidt to take over sole possession of 15th place all-time (next up is Manny Ramirez at 555, 6 homers ahead) , and with Trout sandwiched in between to stay tied with Pujols for the overall lead, we are seeing something amazing. I hope it keeps going. It's where I wish that MLBAM was not such a bunch of pissants, because I would love to clip each home run in this back and forth dash for the 2015 title, running the counter for each player with each shot. It would make a great video. (P.S. - not enough of you noticed how close Trout came to landing in the Sherwin-Williams paint can for the one million bucks! He hit the can, coming about 15 feet short of going in and having Frazee donate $1mm to the Angels Baseball Foundation.)

Pujols leads all of MLB with 29 home runs. (And, clearly, Pujols is NOT suffering from Home Run Derby-itis.) Trout is right behind him in 2nd place with 28. And I am pulling up in 3rd place with 27 solid links:

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Angels Baseball

Mike Trout: There is absolutely no doubt that Mike Trout is a phenomenon. Not even Tiger fans can argue against that. He has been an explosion of baseball starting about the 7th game of his rookie season. He has been a blessing for us fans, and for the legacy of our entire franchise. Every franchise wants that kind of bang from one of their players. It's not too common that anybody is proclaimed The Next Mike Trout. (They are coming, believe me. Kris Bryan, Danny Goodwin, Byron Buxton, etc.) But it is not uncommon for followers of other franchises to posture their top prospect as The Next Big Thing. With Sunday being an off-day, I did some math games and took some fo the names that popped into my head from distant hoopla over the recent years, and compared them to Trout. That turned out to be really, really unfair. So, not so much a link as it simply sharing the fun result. This is Trout compared with Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Yoenis Cespedes, Yasiel Puig, Billy Hamilton, Xander Bogaerts, Kris Bryant and Jurickson Profar.

Andrew Heaney: Heaney must be making the Marlins regret their loss (Dodgers too!) , having totally undersold the kid who is making an impact just months after being acquired. Our cost was 6 months of Howie Kendrick, but over 5 starts (all victories) Heaney now has an ERA of 1.57 and a WHIP of 0.82. Boston media is certainly impressed: "Angels prospect Andrew Heaney kept the Red Sox offense in check, as the lefty went seven innings, allowing two runs on five hits, while not walking a batter and striking out four." As they say back east, Hella prospect.............

Jered Weaver: I am unsure that I am following this correctly. Weaver is now feeling great, and expects to return as the "normal" Weaver. "Jered Weaver, longtime ace, is close to rejoining the rotation. It could happen this weekend at Angel Stadium against the Rangers, perhaps next week on the road. His left hip no longer inflamed, he just needs to get through a second simulated game without issues and get all the moving parts in his complex delivery in sync." What's the recovery from, though? Just his recent injury or the whole season?..............

Chasing Bats: Stating the obvious, the Angels are in still in pursuit of a power bat, left-handed if possible.  The advice here, though, is to stop drooling over Justin Upton: "The Angels will also consider rentals if they make sense, but Padres left fielder Justin Upton, who will be one of the most highly sought after free agents this offseason, doesn't figure to be a fit.The Padres' asking price is said to be too high for a player who would only be controllable for a couple more months, especially with Upton ineligible for a qualifying offer once he's traded."............

TJ: Prospect Jonah Wesely is off to Tommy John surgery. That is a long, long line throughout baseball this year............

Jersey Mike: This is great. Confusing, but great. Jersey Mike's Subs, having missed out to Subway on the obvious chance to snag Trout to rep their hoagies, has taken over the 10-runs or more promo (starting last season?) So the Halos scored 11 runs yesterday morning, which was the make-up date for Sunday's game. A formal announcement was made that only tickets from the Sunday game OR the Monday morning make-up version of the Sunday game would be honored. (For some reason, they felt compelled to warn folks that tickets for the Monday night game - which had not even been played yet - did not apply. But then, people. They suck.) That makes total sense, as long as you surrendered your Sunday ticket in order to fetch your Monday ticket. Otherwise you could use both stubs to get TWO meals. Plus, Jersey Mike's won't honor eTickets. You have to have the physical game stub to get your sandwich. So what if you had an eTicket for Sunday and attended Monday? Wouldn't that mean that you snagged the sandwich by using your eTicket to buy a real ticket to buy a sandwich? But that's just me, always looking for consumer loopholes...........

Social Skilz: The LA official twitter feed totally sucks at the use of emoji. The absolute worst in all of MLB. Is this a bad thing, or a good thing?............

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Elsewhere in Baseball

Homerin' Home the Wins: While on the subject of home runs, especially Mike Trout's 3rd walk-off this past Friday, and with Pujols on a home run tear now, it's pretty topical that MLB has posted a pretty meaty info-graphic on all walk-offs since 1973.  Spoiler alert: Pujols is tied with Ortiz with the most walks-offs by an active player - 11 - and sits two behind Jim Thome with the overall lead (again, just since 1973)..............

Tipping Over: The Red Sox rolled out Eduardo Rodriguez yesterday morning. There is a meme in new England that Rodriguez tips his pitches, and when he lasted only 13 batters while getting shelled the instinct is to not give the Angels credit for offense, but give Angels scouts credit for passing along Rodriguez' tells.This, of course, would mean that Boston coaches are knuckleheads for not correcting the problem. So BoSux manager John Farrell jumped out in front of this latest debacle: "Both John Farrell and Eduardo Rodriguez insisted that, no, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim didn't know what pitches were coming Monday afternoon."..............

W - T - F Moment of 2015: Brace yourselves, because the following headline is real. "Angels Manager Mike Scioscia still believes in Mike Napoli". I knew that I just had to read the article, to see if the content aligned with that headline. Nope, it did not. Dammit. I confess that I was hoping to find some incredible psychic disconnect between Sosh's brain and reality, similar to the recent parting of Jerry Dipoto. Instead, what we get is merely a stretch by the editor to draw links to small piece trying to prop up some hope for Red Sox fans. What we get, actually, is: "Scioscia has long been a believer of Napoli’s offensive talent, regardless of how he felt about Napoli’s defensive ability as a catcher."..........

Bo Don't Know: I had no idea this was a thing recently. After the All-Star Game the Intertubes went garbanzo over Mike Trout versus Bo Jackson comparisons. So Dumb Baseball puts it all to rest. "Basically, Trout is an all-around incredible baseball player while Jackson had some insane tools (arm, speed, power) while missing the hit tool and not having a great glove.......This isn't even mentioning that, again, all of Jackson's good years came after age 23 and Trout hasn't even had those yet.".............

For Sale: Yesterday we linked that the Cincinnati Reds were racing to the marketplace as the first sellers going wholesale. Now we have news that the Detroit Tigers might be right behind them. Does this ean we won't have to listen to Tiger fans anymore? Please??............

Train wreck Baseball: This is embarrassing all the way around. Corey Feldman is still around. Now a singer. Theoretically. With a band. Technically. Doing minor league games. In the hallway? Fans get pissed or something. The club apologizes for something. Feldman himself has the balls to complain about professionalism? What the hell did everybody expect? It's minor league baseball, people!............

Historic All-Star Teams: Five Thirty Eight ran some projections on all the All-Star teams - NL and AL - assembled, going all the way back to the initial 1933 editions. The goal was to figure out which teams were the best.  The results? Well, for starters, the NL team that just lost ranked 15th greatest. And the AL team that just beat them ranked a lowly 71st. It's a good thing it's only one and done...............

Degenerate: We may be seeing the last of Tim Lincecum. His return from the DL is being delayed by what is being described as a degenerative hip issue.  So even when he comes back, his end-game has to be accelerated............

PSA: Just a head's up. This is how you get your Official Halos Heaven card revoked. When a foul ball comes right at you, you do NOT duck out of the way and let it simply hit you.  You catch it. Only in the worse possible scenario do you try to protect yourself with your metal can of cheap-ass Budweiser. And even in that dire emergency, you do not - REPEAT: DO NOT - spill the beer.............

Baseball is still FUN: Imagine showing up for your Thursday Beer League game, and you are pitching tonight. As you warm up, you look over at your opponents and you see that tonight you will be pitching to Hideki Matsui.............