TuesdoLinks: The Song Remains The Same

Have some Apple Pie Links:

Salsa Marron: In his first 22 games in 2016, Fernando Salas had a 2.01 ERA  He had a 2-1 won-loss record with 8 holds, 2 saves, and 2 blown saves. Lately, he has been one of the main cogs of Epic Fail that has now carried over from June to July with this, er, 'team'. Over his last 15 games, that same Salas has an ERA of 10.4 fucking 3. His WHIP has been 1.64. He has 2 blown saves and 5 losses outright, with only 2 holds. Officially, the Angels baseball site is calling this a "slump". Unofficially, we can expect Mike Scioscia to keep running Salas out there until he works his way through his failure. Astute observers will realize that this only means that since Salas is human, subject to hot and cold streaks, Sosh will have dragged the franchise through Salas' entire cold streak and off into oblivion, and an effective Salas at 41 games out won't mean spit..........

Sweatin' the Small Stuff: Little things add up. Back on July 1 the Angels chose to let Jhoulys Chacin take a start and Nick Tropeano was sent to SLC. They saved a buck or two, I guess. Chacin lasted 4.2 innings and gave up 5 runs. The Angels only scored 4. Nick Tropeano makes it back up and takes back over Chacin's slot in the rotation, goes 5 innings and gives up only 2 runs. The Angels score only 2 themselves. The Halos lost both those games but if you flip the Trop and Chacin starts they might go 1-1. And if you choose your bullpen more wisely, maybe start Trop BOTH games, the Halos might go 2-0. There have been about 50 such examples this season so far...........

Eppler: I want to dive back into Billy Eppler's tale about not rebuilding that came out last week. In his interview, we read Eppler admonishing the interviewer with "I would answer that by saying you’re asking a result question, and I’m going to talk to you about the process. We’re always trying to compete, all the time. We’re not punting on competing. We’re not going to get wrapped up in results. I understand you have to report on results. I get that. But I can’t get wrapped up in results. I have to be wrapped up in process. If you trust the process, the results will come." Allow me to be the one who points out the following: the Halos have gone out onto the field of play 83 times this season, and competed in every one of those contests. 83 times they went through MLB's game event process. 83 times they assembled a roster based on Eppler's strategic process. 83 times they went through the game using Mike Scioscia's tactical process. And the result speaks for itself. The process stink, as proven by the results. If there is any other objective for assembling together a group of teams other than for each of them to compete in an effort to try and win the championship, I am unfamiliar with it. The only things we should be interested in are the results. This is sport, not Common Core math..........

Fixin's: Most of this stuff is obvious, but sometime the obvious needs to be said so that we are all on the same page. How does Eppler actually go about making the team great again? The one point made by the author that surprised me was where it is suggested that we let the prospects play to see what they got. I say it surprises me because I was unaware that we had anybody in our system close enough to the big leagues to take a worthy look at..........

Maroons: The other day a group of nincompoops rushed the field at Dodger Stadium to protest hot dogs. Why? Because they consider themselves animal rights activists. Hot dogs include meat (sometimes, I suppose), and obtaining meat means doing violence unto animals. So what better way to protest such violence than storm an event where all the approved participants are using gloves that have been ripped form the carcasses of dead animals? Yeah. Don't protest leather gloves. Protest hot dogs. Joey Chestnut does not approve..........

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The Duffle Bag

Ervin Santana might be coming back to the AL West. In Arlington..........The internet has formed itself into a posse in pursuit of the ballhawk. Adults in the stadiums should just start identifying him during games and obstructing his path through the aisles when balls come their way. If enough adults did that, Hample would be forced to withdraw and more kids would get a shot...........Because that would let more kids do fun shit like this...........Ryan Braun, first pitch swinging base hit up the middle. Good job! Now go grab a seat in the dugout, dumbass, it was not your turn to bat..........Bryce Harper had a gorgeous bat made for the 4th of July. MLB rules won't let him use it. Because MLB hates America...........Andrew Heaney might have his arm in a sling, but that's not stopping him from throwing haymakers at Kevin Durant...........The Cincinnati Reds clearly don't know about "process", and are far too focused on "results". They fire a coach, something I didn't know was possible anymore...........I need to get me one of these new-fangled computers and teach it to write daily links..........

And, finally, the Symbol of America flips the bird at the Dodgers celebration and flies off the Freedom. Bitchin.

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