Mondo Memorial Day Links: Angels are Texas BBQ

Mike Trout stranded 3 guys on base, Albert Pujols stranded 5, Johnny Giavotella stranded 6 and Rafael Ortega stranded 7. And the Angels lost in extra innings, at home. It's always a baseball sin to lose a home game in extra innings. The Angels sinned.

The chance for a post-season might now be over. Mike Scioscia has devolved back into his cocoon, having run out of all other things to day anymore except his final, most worn out cliche: Let's all turn the page.

It has always struck me as odd that we conflate a day of respect to remember those who sacrificed their lives in our defense, with a day of celebration to kick off our cultural summer. I always try to start the day somber and end it with a beer and BBQ. The way the Angels are playing that seems to fit the bill nicely.

Launch your summer with Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

M.A.S.H.: Add Yunel Escobar to the Medevac roster. Hell, by now, it's more like a cruise ship for invalids. Anyway, Escobar went down with a wrist injury. It's just a contusion and he is now listed as day-to-day............Stop me if you have heard this before: ex-Texas Ranger superstar free agent signed by Arte and owed tens of millions of dollars by the Angels gets injured and cannot make it back to the field, getting re-injured every time he gets close. Yeah, in the horse race between Tim Lincecum and C.J. Wilson to get back onto a Major League mound, C.J. Wilson just pulled up lame............

Trout Porn: Mike Trout joined an incredibly elite group of MLB players throughout history over the weekend. On Saturday he knocked the 150th home run of his young career. Only 7 other players in history had hit 150 homers and scored 500 runs before they even turned 25. One of those other 7 guys to do that is Albert Pujols, from back when he could hit his weight. (Bryce Harper should join this club, too.)..........You probably didn't notice that Manny Machado vaulted past Trout to take the fWAR lead for 2016 over the weekend. Going 4 for 5 can do that for a guy..........

Trade Bait: The name of Hector Santiago is popping up as a trade chip approaching the trade deadline. The idea here is that Hector is having a decent season (solid April, less solid May), the Angels are about to go heavy on starters, the Angels are also falling out of the race, and a prospect or two would be worth more to LAA than any other franchise (what with being the worst farm system in recorded history). Now all Billy Eppler needs to do is to get Santiago to snap back out of his recent funk.............

The Sunny Side of the Coin: This season is panning out pretty much as expected, albeit far less than we would hope. There is one team out there who is having a season of far superior suckage. That would be the Atlanta Braves, who are at risk of alienating what remains of their fan base. The absolute worst part of their season coincides nively with a good measure of what little luck we Halo fans have actually enjoyed. Directly: "For many fans, the Andrelton Simmons trade was the absolute nadir. The Braves traded the best defensive shortstop in baseball, to whom they had recently handed a long-term, team-friendly extension, to the Angels in exchange for two risky pitching prospects. They also made sure to ask for Angels shortstop Erick Aybar in return. By WAR, Aybar has been the worst player in baseball this season." Yeah, we got Simmons and dodged Aybar's horrendous 2016..........

Laser Guided Pissing Contest: The Mets got all in a snit when they learned that the Dodgers were coming at them with some new-fangled technology thingy trying to out-snooker their old-school macho men. The Dodgers were using laser range-finders to figure out where they would be positioning outfielders during shifts when the game would later start. The Mets were having none of it. They wouldn't let the Dodgers leave markers on the field and they went and tattled to the MLB Front Office about the lasers. This is just whining. The use of tech before games in perfectly legit and the Dodgers are not the only ones to do this. My guess is that the Mets are just now learning thatthe word laser is spelled with an "s".............

Judgement Daze: I am not sure that Ken Rosenthal has a fine grip on the concept of "subjective judgement". Sure, there are major differences in how pitchers are being treated after plunking, or trying to plunk, or threatening to plunk batters for various reasons. As Rosenthal laments: "The Rangers' Matt Bush hit the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista in a similar act of retaliation for an incident in last year's playoffs (a bat flip, as opposed to Utley's violent slide). Both teams received warnings. Bush was not ejected....Only days later, the Twins' Phil Hughes nearly hit the Jays' Josh Donaldson with consecutive pitches, for no apparent reason. Donaldson believed that Hughes threw at him intentionally. Hughes was not ejected." He is right, these are different and they don't make sense. Not, until , one realizes that each was judged by different human beings in different places and at different times under different circumstances. Then, you know, the potential for different outcomes should not come as such a surprise...........

EPA Alert: The Cubs almost made a huge screw-up. They almost gave David Ross a post-game bath but stopped when they realized they had picked up the wrong bucket. It wasn't Gatorade. It was ammonia. Dumping a bucket of ammonia is a rather uncool thing: "What are accidental release measures for ammonia? Evacuate the area immediately. Isolate the hazard area. Keep out unnecessary and unprotected personnel. Use personal protective equipment as required. Eliminate ignition sources. Increase ventilation to area or move leaking container to a well-ventilated and secure area."..........

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The Duffle Bag

Am I missing something here? When was Daryl Strawberry considered a rowdy bar brawler?..........You want to see what a Tim Lincecum looks like in an Angels uniform, for reals? The Bay Area media is still pulling for him, and covering his return, and giving us a peak............The Dodgers sent Howie Kendrick out to left field with some homework reading to do............When you get into the relative ages of various ballparks, and see it visualized, it starts to make sense that Arte is at some level of financial disadvantage..........We have now had a woman manage a real pro baseball team. Too bad it was little more than a publicity doo-dah...........Because what we are seeing with Clayton Kershaw is something few have ever seen...........Jose Bautista found a novel way to enjoy a suspension from playing down on the field..........Hawk Harrelson in the dumps. Oh happy day..........

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