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The Angels are 10th in the AL in home runs hit, but 1st in the AL in home runs allowed. And there, in a nutshell, is yesterday's game. Two home runs by the Astros against a single home run by the Angels. And another great start, this one by Matt Shoemaker, was wasted. Only one time over the last 6 games have the opposition scored more than 3 runs, and the Angels lost 5 of them.
But, hey! No worries. Just follow the lead of Albert Pujols, who went 0 for 4 (again) yesterday and is batting .177. Come September, most of the guys will get their numbers in line and be perfectly good. Oh, sure, the team might be 5 games out of the playoffs and it will be Ok to talk about disappointment then, but don't bring up April, no siree.....
So let's reboot. They are home. They get a nice weekend against the very worst, hardest-struggling team in all of baseball. A teams so bad they make Chris Sale look like a future Hall of Famer. Let's get out to the ballpark and get some momentum going.
Meanwhile, have some Light-Those-Bats-Up Links:
(I just want to say before we begin that, for some strange reason, the Internet was loaded with baseball "news" that was actually the same news from days ago. I found that there were several stories from even as far back as Monday, that got a lot of coverage yesterday as though they had just happened. Most obvious was the John-Lackey-calling-Eric-Thames-a-PED-user story. It kind of clogged up the normal channels a bit. Weird.)
A Little Bit of Angels News
Alex Meyer makes his 2017 debut tonight. This should be scary as shit for the kid. I know I'd be freaking out. With this offense behind him, he knows that he is already walking a fine line just getting off the plane............
Danny Espinosa has had some plate struggles of late, and folks are noticing. (Oh, hell, folks are noticing A LOT of LAA fail right now.) But one of the things this job requires is to double or triple check an idea. And you know what? So far in 2017 this is pretty much the Danny Espinosa we thought he was...........
On this link, roll right past the observations that Sac flies are down and wild pitches are up. I'm not sure that stuff matters, anyway. Go down to the part where it revisits an old comparison of the Twins and Angels farm systems. At the end of the day the value of any set of prospects is not what analysts project them to be, but what the franchise actually gets out of them. And the Angels got more out of that then expected. Somewhat by guys doing better than known and somewhat by clever trades...........
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Everywhere In Baseball
Clayton Kershaw, it appears, can be a pissy little bitch. A player from the opposing team fails to get off the field and he is forced to wait a minute, and that's such a horrible turn of events that Kershaw finds it one of the worst things?Sheesh. Next thing you know, he's gonna be crying about non-participants in the stands making noise while he's trying to pitch............Because, you bet, them non-participants sitting there in the stands have a passion for shouting things that can mess up the players...............
Would it be safe to assume that Cuban Luis Robert, newly cleared by MLB to sign with anyone, is not another Roberto Baldoquin?............
Curt Schilling should send Roger Clemens a Thank You card. Somehow Clemens got himself a chance to speak in front of a mic, and the result was a reminder that it is Clemens who is, after ll, the biggest assbite among all ex-Major Leaguers...........
Nothing works best to extract money from other people's wallets than having a place that can be pimped out as a possible relocation target. It used to be Los Angeles, worked hard by NFL billionaires. MLB owners are now going to be sending flowers to Rob Manfred, as Manfred is doing a fine job of polishing up Las Vegas as worthy place for some baseball team to embrace. The more such cities, the better when it comes to extortion. And, yeah, there are one or two existing teams which have a notion to complain about their current stadium/city situation...........
You go, MLB! Nothing would work better to connect with future generations of potential baseball fans than to engage directly with 50% of the human population. So, yeah, by all means get your bucks heavy into girls baseball.............
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The Duffle Bag
Sam Miller has an epiphany for us all.......Someday, every journalist and blogger in America will have to register and prove that they got in on this Face of Baseball bullshit..............Yeah. Good idea, Pittsburgh. A Starling Marte T-shirt giveway at this point is probably a bad idea. Best to cancel it. Unless it was going to be this t-shirt. That would be fun............I've been waiting for something like this. Something like MADD objecting to the objecitivfaction of Jose Fernandez...........You know you were missing these. A Tim Tebow story!............How's this for unlucky? Race over and get the ball, turn and fire it in to your teammate. But then watch it hit second base and everybody is safe, and you get tagged with an error. Because of the bag............
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