Well, waddaya know, starting a road trip of with a victory. Nevermind that they were facing another underachiever that had also just lost 4 straight. Take the win, stay in the race, hope for a season-closing hot streak soon, and drink some links:
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Angels Baseball
Roster Stuff: Let's get all the easy stuff out of the way. Johnny Giavotella is out for something that's none of your business, thankyouverymuch............Grant Green was called up to take his place and send down Nick Tropeano to make room for Green..........But then Grant Green then went out with an injury but, because of the colossal offense he brings to the team, might be playing today anyway...........David Freese is threatening to return to the starting lineup as early as September 2...........Cory Rasmus could be back in Anaheim even earlier, September 1...........Conor Gillaspie cleared waivers and is hanging on with a trip to Salt Lake City..............
Johnny Giavotella: Speaking of Johnny G., while he is rehabbing away due to none of your business, we can turn our attention away from such compelling backstories as his walk-up song (well, one of them) and onto the more interesting tale of Hurricanus Katrinus Interruptus............
Jered Weaver: Weaver has found his limit. Ostensibly THE team leader and vet for the franchise, Pujols machismo be damned, Weave was pretty pissed after the Trout/Calhoun debacle in the third inning last night. Afterwards, Weaver was seen screaming as he paced the dugout. This would be the same dugout where Mike Trout would be sitting, but we can't have any screaming at Mike Trout. "After that inning, Jered Weaver screamed indiscriminately as he walked up the dugout. He appeared to be more angry in general about the inning than singling out any teammate." Yep. Just screaming in general. Nothing to see here. Gotta admit that it had results right away, however...............
Huston Street: Speaking of outbursts, and rewards, did anybody happen to notice that mythical unicorn of the genus "Four Out Save" that Mike Scioscia embraced last night?
David DeJesus: DeJesus has experienced the magic of LAA coaching. Since coming over from Tampa Bay, DeJesus has seen his batting average plummet from .259 to the current .235, all on the brutal production numbers of .111 / .184 / .133. That is 5 base hits - 4 singles and a double - in 45 at-bats. It's pretty pitiful when you cannot even get off the bench with this club...............
Mike Trout: News Flash! Mike Trout may be playing while still hurt!! Let's look to advanced statistical data to figure this all out, because we know that we can't rely on getting any truth on such matters from the principals. What do we find? Oh...wait a second! "So, to recap, it looks like Trout’s results have been crap since he was hurt. But if you look at batted ball velocity, he hasn’t dropped off drastically. Maybe this wrist thing isn’t such a big deal. Particularly if you look at his week-by-week average velocity...If Mike Trout was hurting, he didn’t hurt for very long, and the hurt version of himself was still hitting the ball plenty hard. Now it looks like he’s getting it going again." Maybe we can trust the Trouty after all. maybe it really is that he just going through a prototypical Mike-Trout-Sucks-In-August thing at the moment............
Albert Pujols: Pujols has home runs in back-to-back games now. Three home runs in the last 7. He is 3 behind the AL and MLB leader Nelson Cruz. (The vacationing Trout is right behind at 33.) Is it time to rest the old fella again?............
Sean Newcomb: Oooh. Drool. No-hitter through 7, pulled after only 64 pitches because 100 pitches is not a thing in the minors. See what can happen for a General manager when they have a decent first round selection pick with which to work?...........
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Elsewhere in Baseball
Logos: So I am staring at this incredibly awesome GIF, Every MLB Teams' logo throughout the years, when I get a glance at the Chicago White Sox logo for 1940, and for the first time in my life I realize how similar it is to the PCL Los Angeles Angels stadium logo for 1961. Odd, considering that the PCL Angels were last owned by the Wrigley family, owners of the Cubs, and 1961 was now the MLB Autry team. Also odd that I am not paying attention.............
The Boss: Say what you will about George Steinbrenner, but don't say that he didn't give a shit. The man was obsessively invested in the Yankees. Many might not realize that the Yankees were a dumpster fire unto themselves when George took over. It's good to have a Yankees team to hate on. It's a mythos. It's Baseball for The Restofusall. Your team winning the World Series is the whole cake, and your team winning instead of the Yankees and their fans are all the delicious chocolate sprinkles dancing on top. And for everybody younger than 65 years of age, we can all credit George. George wasn't in it for the money, since the team more than took care of that on its own. George was in it for the glory and this episode with the Red Sox just drives home that lesson in spades............
Hot Tamale: This is fun stuff. The Astros were totally humiliating the Yankees, in New York, and they decided to get a little chippy over the fact that Carlos Gomez was still playing balls to the wall. You know, "play the game right" kind of shit with a dash of "show some respect" thrown in. By the looks of it, as seen on the back end of this video,
LLWS: California lives! By the way, I am totally down with the blue unis for West. I always hated that green and gold crapola in years past for some reason. (Our All-Star team, when I was a kid, was Orange-Black-Gray, which was rad and had nothing to do with the Giants.) Up next for West will be the loser between Southwest (Texas) and Mid-Atlantic (Pennsylvania), the winner of which advances to the National Final against the winner between those two teams. Still alive on the International side are Japan, Latin America (Venezuela) and Mexico..........
OMNI: Curt Schilling: can't be trusted even with Little League games.............Umps may be much better these days, but nobody gives a crap?............Hmmm...Kendrick update. Good luck with that, Chase Utley..........Breaking glass press booths, Jessica Mendoza became the first female broadcast analyst for an MLB game...........Why do I get the feeling that there might be bad blood between New York City and Philadelphia? Could it be the broadcasters? Or maybe it's the coaching staffs? Or maybe it's the bat flips???.........Chicago Cubs: A franchise with a sense of humor. I wonder what that is like?...........Pitching stats. Here is a crash course podcast...........One benefit of East coast focus, failing to make the list of biggest boner offseasons, which only had room for 1 team not in East/Central time zones............
Closing: OT - some bears just wanna have fun...........
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