WeekEnd HaloLinks: Nature rains on Halos' drought

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Remembering Adenhart

Just a gentle reminder that 7 years ago this Saturday (tomorrow) we lost Nick Adenhart. All of us at Halos Heaven send our best wishes and deepest sympathies to the Adenhart family, and to the Halos who knew him.

Godspeed, Nick..........

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The Angels finally scored some of them runz last night, with a Gentry-fied offense. Mike Trout and Albert Pujols both got their first 2 hits of the year, and Andrelton Simmons got his first hit as a Halo. Yunel Escobar dronve in 2 runs, Craig Gentry drove in 1, And Pujols drive in the game-winner with a 9th-inning walk-off that slaked the thirst held by Halo fans throughout Southern California. And don't neglect Hector Santiago. 6 innings of work and only 4 hits allowed, 2 earned runs, against 7 strikeouts. That outing makes him our unofficial #1 starter in our rotation.

Considering that there is a rare chance that the next three games will get rained out, have yourself some El Nino Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Heaney Hurting: The bad news is that Andrew Heaney is out for 3 weeks, possibly a little bit more. The good news is that Heaney should be out for only 3 weeks, possibly a little bit more. His MRI came back negative on his UCL and that means no season-ending surgery............

Trop-He-Canna': To fill the spot on the roster, and in the rotation, the Angels did the totally expected and recalled Nick Tropeano. Nick should take the mound sometime in Oakland next week..........

Weaver Ain't Worrying: Well, at least he is barking that he ain't worrying. It might be more like whistling in the dark. Weave is adamant that he is totally healthy and that his stuff - including velocity - is coming back. Yeah. Ok. We will get to see this Sunday, lest El Nino interfere and push him back a few days. As I sit here there is an 80% chance of rainout for Sunday, which is significantly higher than the odds for Weaver to reverse the past three years of his age curve. But, boy, would I love to be wrong about both of those.............

Future Proof: The LAA franchise cupboard may be bare, but there is one particular dust bunny back there that shows some signs of intrigue. Sherman Johnson remains on the radar as an eventual contributor at 3B. Or so says FanGraphs............

Ticket Takers: The Yankees' anti-Stub Hub policies this season are not actually stopping people from using Stub Hub. In fact, Yankee fans were willing to walk about a mile and a half round trip in freezing weather and driving wind to get to the closest allowed Stub Hub outlet and pick up their tix. My guess is that Yankees will work to have Stub Hub evicted or threaten to jerk the Legends seats of that building owner, while they lobby MLB and the city and state of New York to change the rules and force Stub Hub to remain at least 400 miles away from Yankee Stadium............

Beerly Affordable: With the recent affordability comparison among all MLB teams where the Red Sox came out on top, which is not good news because it means most expensive, local reporters in Boston had some questions for team president Sam Kennedy. Kennedy's response was pretty straightforward. The Red Sox have expenses to cover and nobody is complaining, so those prices are right where they need to be. In fact, they are going up. And why not? People like their beer well enough and where the hell are they going to go?............And, you know, when you are paying that much for a prized beverage, you dare not spill a drop.............

Beer Choices: Speaking (even more) of beer, the locals in Chicago compared the Cubs and White Sox and their selection of beer offerings, and found that the White Sox are killing it. As the article explains, this is due to the Cubs selling out to Anheuser-Busch and being served up the likes of Goose Island, which is now brewed in oil tankers. That's what you get for selling out, people.........

Insanity: Hat Tip to aweinshenker on reddit - Trevor Story has started the season (and his career) with 4 home runs in his first 3 games. Those were not in Denver, folks. Well, that rate projected out over the course of an entire season would result in an OPS+ of 267. Pretty laughable, right? RIGHT??? Nobody does shit like that. Nobody except an overly juiced Barry Bonds in 2002, that is. Look it up. Bonds scored an OPS+ of 268 that season..........

Noo Rulez: The other side of that new Slide Interference rule coin is the new Neighborhood Play rule. If umpires are going to be out protecting fielders from takeout slides, fielders are going to start having to make the actual touch on the bag. Yesterday, in the game between the Dodgers and Giants, we saw this new rule actually applied. Well, you and I don't actually see it on the MLB video, but we do get to see the fielder miss the play at second that would eventually get overturned............

Baseball Biz: The Chicago Cubs have nearly doubled their payroll from what it was just 2 years ago. It's possible that they have done so on the premise that they will get to jump back into the TV mega deal wheel of fortune in 2019 and some cable company will be covering those costs for them. But Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune thinks that folks there in the windy city should consider the import of what has been happening with the Dodgers and SportsNet LA. By 2019, the cord-cutting phenomenon will be cutting through the verdant sports package landscape like Sherman marching to the sea. Cubs fans should be hoping that Cubs ownership is already forecasting how coverage revenues will be managed in the future, without assuming any windfalls..........

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The Duffle Bag

You're killing me, Smalls! The Sandlot turned 23 years old yesterday. Yeah. You people are getting old, too...........Want to start investing in your summertime reading? Here is a list of 30 decent baseball books..........It ain't Angel Stadium, nor the Rockpile, but this info graphic focusing on McCovey Cove in ATT Park up in San Francisco is worthy of perusing..........On the subject of sports biz, cord cutting and live streaming, over in football land the NFL chose to use Twitter for their live streaming after Facebook pulled out. In the aftermath we learn that the NFL doesn't think that Facebook knows how to make money...........

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