MondoLinks: Halos tossed back to Anaheim

Well, those were sure a fun four games. The Indians outscored the Angels 37 to 12, outhit them 56 to 20, stole ore bases 12 to 1, hit more home runs 6 to 5, and struck out more opponents 28 to 24. And the Angels committed 6 errors, to the Indians zero. Is it any surprise that the Indians won all 4 games? Ten losses in a row, three series sweeps in a row, and Mike Scioscia is so upset with things that he strolled out to have a nice chat with umpire after his Big Star Albert Pujols gets ejected.

So a lot of losses. But relax, everyone. 10 of our final 16 games this month are against serious playoff contenders. Still lots more fun to be had in August. Fortunately, when we get to September, we only have 23 of our last 29 games are against playoff contenders. It's time to weed out the bandwagon fans. Dan Szymborski, who has posted here on HH in years past, is now forecasting our chances of nabbing the #1 overall pick. Yeah, we failed to suffer enough misery in teh first few months to have a solid chance. So we will lose out on that, too.

By the way, we talk a lot about Napoli killing us with his bat. It was good to see Calhoun giving Naps the GTFO for a change, when Napoli tried to lumber his chunky body in for a score from second base. Out by a mile. 'Bout damned time these dudes started calling bullshit on the beat down that Napoli takes out on them.

Lose some of your Monday grinding through some Not-Yet-at-the-Bottom-of-the-Barrel Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Tired Acts: A rare thing happened yesterday. Albert Pujols was ejected. Pujols struck out looking and didn't like the location. Ok, that happens. He was wrong, but it happens. What Pujols was REALLY upset about was the called 1st strike. The count should have been 3-0 instead of 2-1. Albert was absolutely correct there. Horrible call. The thing about this episode is, however, that Pujols had his say of complaining at the plate and was done, walking back to the dugout. He made one last bitch back at plate umpire Clint Fagan, and got the toss. No, Mike Scioscia, Albert was NOT just walking back to the dugout...........

Ouch: Lucky Geovany Soto. He has only made it into 26 games this season. After being in 20 of the first 39 games he was sent to the DL with a torn right meniscus. He got back for a pair of games in July only to be sent back to the DL with knee inflammation. Finally, he rejoins the Halos for the final game in Chicago. And in his 4th game back, yesterday in Cleveland, he gets smacked on the glove hand by Francisco Lindor's bat on Lindor's follow-through after popping up. Soto was pulled from the game and is not day-to-day................C.J. Cron is on the mend, but still has some rehab time to get through before he would get a chance to rejoin this sinking ship...............

Piling On: When things are as bad as this, we see a lot of players picked up off the bone pile. The latest is more intriguing: Andrew Bailey (Al Aburquerque was cut loose to make room). Bailey was once a phenomenal talent. RoY and All-Star with Oakland, after a 3rd season which saw him tailing off, Billy Beane shipped him off to Boston in the package that brought back Josh Reddick. Boston scrambled Bailey into a mess and he hasn't been the same since. Now he is ours. Maybe our stellar coaching staff can work their magic and restore Bailey to significance. Like they did with Lincecum. Maybe even better than they did with Lincecum...........In you missed it, the Halos have taken on Cody Ege. Sorry, Cody, but I have no idea who you are..............They also let go Sean Coyle, DFA'd. Sorry, Sean, I forgot all about you. I might only even have known you because I linked to you signing on board. And then I forgot.............

Simba Porn: Andrelton Simmons is a magician. And baseball seems to be missing him. Is it because he is no longer as powerful a magician? FG shows us that the answer is hell to the no. "So Simmons remains one of the best defensive players in the game, if not the best." the review points out that the numbers, highly unreliable, do show him closer to human than in years before, but maybe the reasons that we are not seeing Simmons highlights all the time are that he plays with the Angels - and behind the shadow of Mike Trout, and that MLB draconian social media policies inhibit fans form sharing clips like we were able to when Simmons first came into the league. Personally, I go with that last one, and then add that nobody beyond us really care to watch Angels games anymore...........

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The Duffle Bag

Oh, sure. It's easy to pick on the David Freese story now..I got tired of doing that weeks and weeks ago. Hey, Whicker, Matt Joyce ain't doing too bad over there with the Pirates, either.............Luckiest double-play you will ever see. Slickest one you will ever see, too...........No. I take that back. THIS is the slickest double-play you will ever see.............The Mariners are coming to town. Maybe we will catch a break..........I find it interesting that when I read about Mookie Betts having a 3-homer game - his second of the season - I honestly feel that this is something that Mike Trout cannot do, and I shouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.............Similarly, I find it almost as difficult to see Trout having a 5-hit game like Matt Wieters had yesterday. We saw Trout give us 3-hit and 4-hit games back in 2012 and 2013, but not so much anymore.............Giancarlo Stanton and his power have overwhelmed his own groin, and he is out for the season..............In case you had any doubt what the priorities were, Tim Tebow is already cashing in on the baseball career he has never had..............Joe Girardi, the dude who blew off ARod's final few days with the Yankees, gives us crocodile tears.............ARod, for his part, took the past-career opportunity and threw a hell of a party..............Terry Collins didn't want to be the guy who pulls his pitcher from the rare no-hit opportunity, even when that pitcher is deep into his pitch count. Fortunately for Collins, Steve Matz lost his bid in the 8th..............More MLB pitchers going down, and they are not under the Halo. But it might impact the LAA draft position.............

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(A Correction regarding the previous Mystery Graph, I found the source spreadsheet while setting up for today.. it was not FanGraphs Defense as I wrote in the comments Friday. It was DRS. Yeah, it changes a lot. In fact, it makes for a bullshit test. nearly a week ago the DRS for Oakland was listed as "2". As I type this it is listed as "-71". Those are both listed 2016 season to-date. You tell me.. Today. is something far more stable.)

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