Thor'sLinks: Happy day is here again!

Matt Shoemaker must have felt confused, standing out there on the pitcher's mound with a bucketload of runs supporting him. He hasn't had this many runs on his side since July 8th (a 9-5 win over Baltimore, which was the only other time this season the Halos scored as many as 8 runs on his turn). And he made the most of it, holding the Blue Jays scoreless over 6 innings as the Angels win 8-2.

Shoey has had some less than stellar outings of late but, overall, continues to drive his league cred forward.

Albert Pujols homered to take over sole ownership of 10th all-time career home run leaders. Mark McGwire has forever been ejected from the club. Pujols is now at 584, Frank Robinson is just ahead of him at 586. All told, Pujols went 4 for 4

Have some Sunshiny Day Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Give a Shit: Something to thin about as we trudge towards the conclusion of this season of despair: A lot of fans may have given up caring, but that is not necessarily true of the players. The recent late-inning heroics between the going-nowhere A's and going-even-less-as-far Angels is used to serve the point. "But for a night in August, for a break from miserable seasons and downward franchise trajectories, these two teams met for a game that had playoff feel, at least once the context was stripped away. And the players involved, who are sometimes criticized for treating their job as, well, a job, seemed genuinely concerned with the game’s outcome, from superstar Trout to journeyman reliever Ramirez".........

More Trout: Mike Trout being on a shitty LA Angels edition is not without a huge amount of baseball precedent. He is surrounded by Hall of Famers who have had quite a few seasons among teammates just as bad, of not worse. that said, this year holds the potential of a particularly awful confluence: "The Angels’ win percentage [ of .416] would be the second-worst in major-league history by a team with a 10-WAR position player.".........

Street Repair: Huston Street had his knee surgery, and tweeted in a light-hearted manner, charming the MLB blogosphere.

Just got out of surgery, still pretty loopy, but the doc said I should come back throwing 98, but it could have been 89

— Huston Street (@HustonStreet) August 24, 2016

Ha ha! Get it? Street was "loopy" and couldn't focus on whether the doctor said 98 or 89. After watching Street this season, it's possible that the doctor actually used the words "eight or nine"...........

Bed-Ridden: Oh, sure. Bring it on. Cam Bedrosian has been diagnosed with a blood clot in his right arm. His time on the DL is being extended, and it may require season-ending surgery............

HOW is this Possible?: A few months ago if somebody had offered you a deal of Ryan Howard for the price of Ji-Man Choi as our backup 1B you would have crapped your pants with derisive laughter. And then we had the All-Star Break, and you would have been dead wrong..........

Managing to WIN: The Dodgers, by far and away the team most devastated by injuries this year - to an extent that has now reached an all-time historic record - continue to win and continue to climb towards a sweet playoff seeding. They have done it with depth. Depth that comes from smart(er) roster decisions. Sure they have a huge payroll, but that payroll was put into place to tide the team over until all the investments being made in their farm system start to pay off. Consider draftees Corey Seeger and Joc Pederson to be partnered with bargain Free Agent 3B Justin Turner. Remember, all this LAD rebuild started immediately after the Angels had hired Jerry Dipoto and signed Albert Pujols and C.J. WIlson and re-signed Jered Weaver. In the interim, we got reamed in first round draft choices and burned a lot of what we had on catchers going nowhere. And those contracts created a barrier to Arte that the Guggenheim group has ignored...........

Gettin' Crispy: TheSportsQuotient agrees with you guys. Coco Crisp needs to put up or shut up. "Players should always get the money they deserve, but based on the way Crisp has been playing, he doesn’t deserve that extra $13 million. The A’s would be extremely generous to throw that kind of money at a player with a negative WAR, and it’s completely reasonable that they’re not."............

Puig Plays: Of the 5 teams that should consider Yasiel Puig, Grant Brisbee would rank the Angels at the top if not for the fact that any Puig success would embarrass the shit out of our next-door neighbors. "Puig would slot right in, and he wouldn’t have the pressure of a pennant race on his brain. He could just Puig the hell out of the place, and he would know that his old team and his old fans would be watching. That’s the only reason why the Angels aren’t the likeliest suitor. The potential embarrassment factor is substantial."...........

Yu Got It: Yu Darvish smashed a 410-foot home run last night, in only the 14th at-bat of his career. This was the first time a Japanese-born pitcher had ever homered for an American League team............

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The Duffle Bag

The Oakland A's are shopping once again for a new home. This time in Oakland, of all places. Because, you know, Oakland is so awesome. (Just kidding. No. No, it's not. No other CA city of that approximate population has anything near the Oakland crime rate. It's just that a lot of Silicon Valley rich kids have run out of San Francisco real estate to purchase.)..........Speaking of parks, the White Sox are changing the name of theirs, from U.S. Cellular Field to Guaranteed Rate Field. Start lining up your shitty puns here. Notice that you are already not the first...........Yeah. Sure. Major League Baseball should take 3 weeks off in the middle of the season so that SI writer Joe Sheehan could write about some cool Olympic baseball..........If you love baseball history, and always wanted to own a very cool original and historic photo from the early days, now is your chance. 7,462 negatives go on sale this Saturday. Of course, they are not going to sell them off one by one..........ARod is taking his first step into his post-baseball life. As a motivational speaker. You, too, can learn to become a human centaur..........Chris Archer, to whom I linked yesterday losing a battle of wits with his own sweater, makes note that this is not an uncommon thing in his life...........Yeonis Cespedes is putting up a pretty good year, and he could jump back into the very weak FA market this winter if he wanted to. Probably make a nice killing. Nah, says Cespedes. He's happy where he is. And to think we can find people making comments on him being a clubhouse cancer..........WTF??? How the hell does a fan "fall" into an MLB dugout??...........

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