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The Angels have opened 2017 stronger than forecast. Mostly because everybody projects Seattle to be much better than they look so far. The Angels were not supposed to sweep them.
But the bottom line is that the Halos ARE 5-2. What this means is that 7 games are gone and only 155 are now left to play. And the team now needs only to win at a 54.84% clip to reach 90 wins. That is down from 55.56%. Not much, and still much higher than the 44% win rate some folks think is in store but those are feckless worry warts.
The Rangers are in town. Time to deal with these remaining 155 games.
Have some Eye-Opening-and-Having-a-Great-Time Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
With no game to create some fresh history to hash over, we get to rehash the past week. Let's start with a photo essay............
On Saturday. Mike Trout took Felix Hernandez long. Very long. And Trout was smiling about it the entire time. Here is a pitch-by-pitch breakdown of the epic battle. Because it might just be the best at-bat battle of the season. Oh, and that last pitch called for a strike? Pitch #14? Yeah, could have gone either way. It's one of 4 pitches out there that Hernandez was getting called for him. Only one of those 4 was a sure strike...........
And then on Sunday, we had a magical 9th inning. More great drama. Let's break that one down, too. The best part?Look at that final photograph. Now go look at thesite logo for Lookout Landing. Yes, different player. But same DNA............
Ok, we've had the weekend. Now let's look at the entire Opening Week for Mr. Mike Trout. Let's face it. The kid is living large.........
And, yet, Andrelton Simmons did even better. Both Simmons and Trout are at 0.4 fWAR, but Simmons leads in RAR (Runs Against Replacement) 4.3 to 3.8.............
I wonder if it's too late to get the sports drink supplier contract for the LAA dugout this season?............
Not ALL "Power Rankings" have overlooked the LAA much-better-than-expected start..........
He Who Must Not Be Taunted has a new blog post up for all of us to enjoy. It's a nice recap of the first week. It would have been juicy to learn what the broadcast team was doing off mic during the Sunday comeback, but there is plenty of time in teh season to get to stuff like that. I do take exception to one line: "Who really knows what will happen down the road but like I’ve said before and I’ll repeat once again, NOBODY picked this team to do anything in 2017." I have picked them to do something. I pick them to challenge for a Wild Card. But I have more faith in our 2017 pitching staff than is to be found in the common discourse. Of course, I am a nobody so there's that...........
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Everywhere In Baseball
The Giants had their 2017 Home Opener yesterday. First guests in attendance were the SF Fire Department............
And then the Giants hosted the DBacks, which gave us the bases-clearing infield dribbler. I'm still laughing..........
The Red Sox have been fighting a flu outbreak to start the year. Somebody decided hat it would be a good idea to fumigate the clubhouse because, obviously, thar be tiny little flu critters hiding behind the lockers and so forth. Now, remember, this is the town that still goes bonkers over how unscientific the world is when it comes to their sports heroes. But, in this case, it was the Boston decision-makers themselves that went all unscientific. As Camden Depot tweeted, all they had to do was close the door for a couple of days. Really, that's the survivability of the flu virus on environmental surfaces. Now, if you don't have a day or two to just leave things alone, it IS possible to fumigate. You just have to make the room air-tight and pump it full of ozone. Which would delight all the fine folk at the EPA. So in teh end, we can summarize this entire episode in a single word: Boston..........
It's never too early to panic on your season outlook. Not even if the 162-game season is only 5 games old. Not if you are the Detroit Tigers, dammit..........
Baseball is starting to get funky with batting helmets. We have a harrd trend toward matte finish, and another trend towards raised logos. Here come the Braves, with carbon fiber print...........
Strikeouts and Home Runs and Walks, oh my! Strikeouts and Home Runs and Walks, oh my! Yeah, it's early. But some stretching of the math reveals what kind of season we have in store for 2017..........
Now we're talkin'! Why try and kill America with grasshoppers, as the Mariners are trying to do (they sold out, by the way), when you can kill America with donuts!?!?.......So let's ketchup on some more insane ballpark foods for 2017, shall we?..........
This is a long article, but worth reading in today's evolving media world. We chastise gleefully the MSM for missing the boat as it departed for The Information Age. It was, after their boat. Deadpsin give us a pretty solid example, as the NYT is trying hard to evolve and doing reasonably well in their Sports content, only to get shot down by their own new Public Editor, a person who is supposed to be credentialed as leading journalism into the digital age. This editor, however experienced, is still fairly clueless about sports information in the modern world..........
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Season Update
The Royals were the last team to pick up a win in the 2017 season. They claimed it Friday night, at 10:22 PM local time in Houston.....
The Orioles were the last team to lose a game. That happened Sunday afternoon at 4:57 PM local time in New York City......
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The Duffle Bag
Don't let anybody try and convince you that ballplayers don't care about their moonshots............Otis Nixon has officially gone un-missing. You can all stop searching for him now..........The Braves are serving a beer brewed with baseball bat wood? How charming. How novel. But to make sure we are all safe from teh chemicals they put into baseball bats, the beer is actually made from wood that did NOT become a bat. So, like WTF?..........If you can't win your fans over with fair prices and quality baseball, why not try puppies?..........This looks like a great way to go see a ballgame in Chicago, provided that you have 108 years to get there..........Man, Buster Posey must be the most snake-bit player in MLB. Pun intended..........Martha Stewart. Just the kind of person who gets great seats for Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. And just the kind of ignoramus who uses social media to brag about it while violating a basic rule of the common fan..........(h/t UniWatch) Wanna buy for yourself some of the same grip tape Mike Trout uses? Look up his gear here. Or many MLB stars...........
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