HumpLinks: It's our Toronto blue daze

Eleven road losses in a row. It's not ten. You see, most teams, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten. Where can you go from there? Where? What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?...Put it up to eleven.

Have some Rising To Expectations Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Real Estate: This thing caused a lot of commentary yesterday. The City of Anaheim approved the LT Global Investment project slated for the corner of State College and Orangewood. This was the one, if you recall, where the Angels rejected a request from LT to nab a wee bit of that corner beyond their current lot boundaries, costing Arte a few parking spaces. The LT plan went through some more evolution, got scaled back a bit as a result, and carried forward to final approval as a slightly smaller project. Arte's crew objected anyway, which was natural. Anything that limits their options in the area would raise objections. Disney does it all the time (they fought like hell against Garden Walk). And, as expected, Anaheim approved the project and will go forward as they wanted to all along. So, really, nothing to see here, folks. This ain't the real battle...............

Scouting It Out: The Angels continue to make serious and measurable repairs to their scouting resources. They hired a prime mover and shaker out of the Cardinals' scouting system, Matt Swanson, to take over as their scouting director. If nothing else, he might bring with him the power to cause nervousness among the Houston Astros...........

Bobbing and Weavering: Jered Weaver is actually considering retirement after the season. He is undecided, officially, but that means that he has NOT decided to stick around, either..........

Street Closed Until Further Notice: As we linked the other day, Huston Street is done. He was on the verge of being done, but needed a second opinion concerning surgery on his hurting knee. That opinion came in yesterday and surgery shall be done. Makes one wonder just how far back this injury went in 2015..............

Tip the Cap: Going into the game last night Albert Pujols, who had 11 Plate Appearances against R.A. Dickey, had never gotten a hit off of him. And he showed Dickey a little respect before his initial at-bat. Nice show, Albert. By the way, exiting the game last night Albert Pujols has still never gotten a hit off of R.A. Dickey..........(For the record, Pujols does have hits off of Marco Estrada and J.A. Happ, the next two pitchers facing LAA. Also, while we are here, the pitcher against whom Pujols has the most Plate Appearances - 15 - without a hit is...Joe Saunders.)

Still Joshin': We discussed this a little while ago and now it is formal. To maintain roster flexibility, the Rangers have released Josh Hamilton unconditionally. It's fun to write about, but in the world of guaranteed contracts it doesn't mean a thing. The Angels and Rangers are still on the hook for paying Hamilton, and Hamilton still doesn't have to actually play in any games for that money. But this allows the Rangers to look like good guy and invite him back for Spring Training and a chance to get his job back if, in fact, he is game fit. And the rangers had to do this before August was out to make that work. If  Hamilton is fit he looks like a a grand comeback story that can still stick it to the Angels. If he doesn't he looks to get a lot of time to enjoy his next $28 million salary. The only thing intriguing here would be for some other team to step in and offer him a league minimum contract. Then BOTH the Angels and Rangers would be paying Hamilton to suck for somebody else............

Game Time!: The Tim Tebow Flying Circus makes its off-Broadway debut on August 30th here in Los Angeles. And it will be closed to us rubes. Only reps from the 30 MLB teams are invited. That means no Independent League minor league reps, no reps from the Mexican or Japan or Korean or Australian Leagues. Nope. Nothing but hte top shelf for this media whore maven.............

Playoffs?!: MLB has released the 2016 playoff schedule, which could end as late as November, just in time for Thanksgiving. October 7th and October 10th are the big days.............

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The Duffle Bag

Now that he has his LAA HoF plaque, GA is too GA to stick around and enjoy it...........Rockies pitcher John Gray couldn't wait to get to play the Brewers, and stay in that infamous haunted hotel. He took his own personal "ghost finder"..............Kid, you got one job............Jason Heyward is the Cubs' GMJ, Jr., or Josh Hamilton, except without the drugs. So, see? We Angels fans can share our miserable luck. We are givers that way.............Rays' pitcher Chris Archer: outwitted by his sweatshirt............Billy Hamilton makes a great grab. But somehow he makes his first step at NEGATIVE three one-hundredths of a second (which would be into the future)..........This is what happens when we stop believing in things like unwritten rules. And Santa Claus. We flip off batters before striking them out.............

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