MondoLinks: Halos earn split, sting Jays.

What is it about Angel Stadium that creates bee swarms, anyway? I suppose that, when it comes to game delays, pestilence is not so bad compared to other acts of nature.

The Angels, after losing the opening two games in the 4-game set, ended up snatching a split by taking Saturday and Sunday. That gives the Halos the season series with the Jays, 4-3. Not bad considering that the Angels and Jays didn't even meet this year until very deep into the season, when the Angels prospects were nil, their pitching staff had drowned in ambulatory experience, and the Blu  Jays were in the playoff hunt. Oh, and Mike Trout out-hit, out-scored and out-played Josh Donaldson over this 4-game set. Not liek anybody else is paying attention to that. Not even up in Canada, where they are more fixated on how they lost ground in the playoff chase.

So as the Angels play spoiler, heading off to Texas, have some Honey-Hole Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Richards: Garrett is feeling pretty good about his stem cell therapy results. If he is right, I will be amazed. Happy, and happy for him, but amazed nonetheless...........

Meyer: Alex looked pretty good yesterday. That is a fine change of pace. 5 full innings of shutout baseball with 7 strikeouts against only 3 walks. That's much better than his first 2 LAA outings. Ignore the fact that Ricky Nolasco has had a couple of excellent starts against a bunch of mediocre ones since coming over from Minnesota. For Nolasco, it's more about eating innings and saving a bullpen. And everything else is a wash for what has been Hector Santiago since being sent to the Twins. It's all about Meyer. And it's REALLY about Meyer in 2017. Yesterday, therefore, was a good day............

Trout: Mike Trout is getting a reputation as a slide magician on the base paths. Anything to keep his name in the new is a good thing. And highlight plays while running the bases drives home the point that Trout is an all-around baseball player. It's where he justifies his major WAR advantage over a Jose Altuve, for example...........For a slow-mos, and a closeup on that slide at home, here you go............And this is how you StatCast a slide...........

Alter-Trouts: At the beginning of the season, it was Trevor Story. At the end of the season, it is Trea Turner. Along the way it has been Gary Sanchez. Hell, at one point it has been questioning whether Gary Sanchez deserve the Trevor Story treatment? All this because, as I linked to a while ago, everybody is tired of the greatness of Mike Trout, so much so they are eager to find the alternate to the daily Mike Trout............

Post-Mortem: With the Angels officially eliminated from the playoffs, post-mortems are common. What is uncommon is writing an entire paragraph about what went wrong, and not saying a damn thing about the injury decimation of the pitching staff............

Hootin' & Hollerin': The Orem Owlz took the Pioneer Championship Series 2 games to none, defeating the Billings Mustangs for that crown. So congrats for that, Owlz!!.............

Dream On: W.P. Kinsella died over the weekend. Kinsella is the author of "Shoeless Joe", the novel that was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams. "W.P." stood for "William Patrick", not to be confused with the "Ray", "Annie", "Karin" or "John" Kinsellas in the film. But you get the idea............

R.I.P: Sad news out of San Diego. Padres infielder Yangervis Solarte lost his lovely wife to cancer. Yuliette was only 31 years old...............

Gag: The Giants are choking. Hard. How does this 2016 Giants choke job stand up to the worst goat ropers in modern MLB history? Yeah, close but no cigar. Even if things go as horribly as they have been, the 2016 Giants would only rank 6th worst. The fun part here is that the 1995 Angels have been removed from the perch of ultimate ignominy. The 2011 Red Sox now occupy that distinction...........

Carlos Gomez Update: because I promised to do this, win or lose. (I was advocating signing him to finish out the season with us before he hits the FA market this winter. We could have done what the Rangers did, which was to sign Gomez for the MLB minimum and let Houston pick up his balance. Since we are already playing several other guys that same minimum, Gomez taking their spot would have cost a net $0 and we could have given Gomez a test drive the same way we are giving those other guys their test drives.) Since getting dumped off the Astros and signed as a Free Agent by the Rangers, left fielder Carlos Gomez has a slash line of .233/.341/.521 with an OPS of .862 and an OPS+ of 122 and 6 home runs. During that time we have played Nick Buss 8 games in Left, Jefry Marte 7 times, Rafael Ortega 5 times, and Gregorio Petit and Sane Robinson once each...........

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The Duffle Bag

Ok, let's start with quick clips of fun...........First up is a Dad-fail. This youngster should have learned how to eat a hot dog long before, and Dad should not have let the poor lad fly solo...........Next we see that there are people in the stands with some serious ball skills, too............And sometimes those with the ball skills are among our finest............Ben Zobrist, just out cruising to the ballgame. Like most every Little Leaguer at some point.............The Red Sox are pissed at how lightly the Padres and A.J. Preller got off for submitting fraudulent medical records to the Front Office, something that skewed trades to their favor. But are they pissed enough to considering suing the Pads?...........Stirrups: an homage or an iconoclast? You tell me...........Everybody is sneaking into Cubs games these days. On Friday it was GM Theo Epstein, putting on a disguise and claiming a seat out in the bleachers. Saturday it was Stephen Colbert, also putting on a disguise, and getting into the stadium as a hot dog vendor (and then filming a promo)............Poor David Ortiz. All that attention and adoration on his retirement tour is so hard. If only he had not announced a retirement tour so that he could bask in so much attention and adoration...........And I thought WE were fickle over our manager. At least one Royals fans sure hopped off the honeymoon train with Ned Yost pretty damned quick.............No matter what you think about Astros fans as a whole, it is no longer deniable that at least ONE Astros fan is totally committed and not a mere bandwagon hopper...........

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Draft Tracker

Updated tracker.

The 2016 slot and pool monies were found here.

The Michael Jimenez Study is found here.

The HBT 2014 Study is found here.

The HBT 2012 Study is found here.

The Sky Andrecheck 2009 Study is found here.

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