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The Angels offense went flat last night and left Matt Shoemaker dancing on the edge. Shoe responded, holding the Yankees at zero for 6 full innings. And then he made 2 mistakes in the Yanks to tie it up. Then with 2 outs in the 8th and after surrendering a pair of singles, Mike Scioscia went to his bullpen in the 8th. Shoe was still throwing the same +92mph as he was in the 1st inning but it was the 4th time through the order. And it's not like Jose Alvarez is a human gas can. But Yankee Stadium has a cheap fence down right field and Carlos Beltran parked Alvarez' second pitch right over it and that was the game.
That was something like 2 hours of brilliance lost in 30 minutes of pain. But if the Halos had been hitting it didn't need to be this way.
Hey, did you notice in the 3rd inning that Mike Trout, on first base with a walk ahead of Albert Pujols, managed to steal second base, opening up first base for a Pujols walk, and the Yankees mysteriously continued to pitch to Pujols anyway? Witchcraft, I tell you!
Also. Mike Trout is better at knowing the strike zone than umpire Phil Cuzzi.
Links:
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Everywhere In Baseball
M.A.S.H.: C.J. Wilson will restart throwing this week and Tyler Skaggs will do 5 innings Wednesday before moving up to Salt Lake...........Tim Lincecum makes his second start for the Bees tonight.............Andrelton Simmons did a rehab start last night with the Inland Empire 66'ers............We will find out if Joe Smith hits the DL today............And with Nick Tropeano hitting the DL, recently signed David Huff will be run out to the mound tonight against the Yankees. The last time Huff was anything of an MLB pitcher it was as a Yankee..........
Freak Show: As noted above, Lincecum pitches in Salt lake tonight. But get more background to his journey and signing with the Angels in this review. " After a 'handful of teams' expressed interest, Lincecum signed a deal with the Los Angeles Angels in what he says was an easy choice. 'I want to be a starter and want to keep that role established,' he said. 'A lot of other teams didn't see me as that, so it was like a no-doubter. And I'm a West Coast guy.' "..........
Drafty: I love this headline: "Angels look to begin rebuild of system in Draft" What are we rebuilding from, exactly? Wouldn't that including rebuilding from the rather poor recent drafts??? Because let's get real here. As Baseball Prospectus draft expert Chris Crawford notes in this CBS Sports interview: "CBS: Is there a particular team/scouting department that you're interested to see how they play it this year?...Crawford: Quite a few, but I would have to say Seattle comes to mind. They have one of the bottom five systems in baseball -- which might be a generous ranking, really -- and to be quite honest, Jerry Dipoto and his staff didn't exactly light the world on fire with their drafts in Los Angeles."..........
Getting Arte'd: Yes. We need a term for this. The Padres are suffering from a severe case of failed expectations. Big Splash turns into Burnt Cash Syndrome. Over the past decade our franchise has been Lord and Master of these sorts of things, so we have earned the naming rights. Sure, there are Big Fail examples elsewhere. But what other franchise has a consecutive string such as ours? And even if you can find one (or two), which of those has the Albert Pujols future staring them into submission? So we have The Moreno Line, and based on what has happened in San Diego between all the hype of the 2014-2015 offseason to the now, the Padres have stepped over it..........
Trout: Yankee fans are still doing that entitlement drool. Even Mike Trout's friends in New Jersey..........
Sosh: Mike Scioscia listed as even Honorable Mention in the list of managers being at risk of losing his job? LMFAO. It could be worse, I suppose. It could an actual forecast of the slightest possibility on some click-bait site. (As a reminder, Sosh is still signed through 2018, when he will be coming up on the age of 60............
Sad State: The Astros are on the rise. The Rangers are on the rise (this is their franchise and minor league depth truly paying off). The Mariners are in free fall. But sad graph is sad. The Halos are at the lowest for odds on winning the division. See the chart in the link for the latest because the direct link to the Win Probability Chart is broken............
Baseball Biz: The City of Atlanta politicians have absconded with funds created for the building of public parks, and handed it over to the billionaire owners of the Atlanta Braves in order to pay for their new revenue palace baseball stadium. Literally. "...the county actually redirected tax revenue that had been earmarked for public parks to pay for the stadium bonds, even though the park project was approved by voters, and the stadium never was." Shameless..........
CWS Update: Pool play is over. UC Santa Barbara is the only SoCal team to make it out of pool play. UCSB, the #2 seed in their pool, will face Louisville coming out of the Louisville pool as the #1 seed. Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton were eliminated. In fact, for the Far West it was a blood bath. Gonzaga, New Mexico, Arizona State, Utah and Washington were also bounced. Arizona had to take on #1 seed Louisiana-Lafayette twice on their home field. They beat them in the early game 6-3 and in the late game 3-1. Arizona will take on Mississippi St. next.........The #1 seeds to not make it out of their respective pools then were Louisiana-Lafayette, Vanderbilt, Clemson, Virginia and Mississippi. The Sweet 16 are still dominated by SEC, ACC and Big 12 teams.
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The Duffle Bag
Mike Scioscia throwing his full weight behind any All-Star consideration for one of his players (Kole Calhoun), like he always does...........And since the All-Star game won't be played in Anaheim this year, Kole Calhoun's killer road/home splits make for a compelling case...........Fans are making some of the best highlight reel catches lately............Just a friendly reminder that LA baseball owns two of the Thrones of Game. The Top 2, actually..........Ryan Howard's beer bottle episode the other day now has a suspect. Police are searching for this guy, the one the Phillies usher is practically standing right next to and staring at..........Wait. Two teen-aged boys well on the road to personal glory, left to their own devices through long periods of boredom, end up going too far with pranks and causing serious injury? When did this start happening?..........Diapers to diapers = The Scully Cycle. Not sure if I would own that one if it were me...........I need to play with BBR more often, and figure out how to glean these cool come back and blown saves tallies for 2016 so far.........Deal with it, kids. Big Papi no happy with pinatas............If you tilled it, they will come. Sonoma Field of Dreams. (By the way, listing sewage-infested and tarp-draped Oakland as one of California's beautiful stadiums and leaving out only Anaheim from the list of California MLB parks???)...........
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Mystery Graph
(Yesterday's was how LAA finished the season, by number of games in first place, or out of first place. The trend lately is less than healthy. Moving on, whatcha got for this one??...)
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