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3 days prior, Jesse Chavez took to the mound at the top of the 13th inning, game tied and nobody out. Against these same Toronto Blue Jays. It went K, groundout, single, single, home run, single, K. 7 batters faced, 3 runs scored. All earned. Blech.
Last night...same Chavez, same Blue Jays. 6 innings pitched, 24 batters faced, 4 hits allowed, 1 run scored (also on a home run), 7 strikeouts.
Baseball is a cruel mistress. I cannot explain it.
What I can explain...the Angels rank 24th in all of MLB in home runs hit. And they rank 2nd (barely) in home runs allowed. The Angels have the worst HR differential in all of baseball, at -14. That might be related to LAA ranking 27th in SLG. Not to mention being tied for 7th-worst strikeouts.
But, hey, they pulled out a split, and prevented having strapped around their neck the albatross of being the first team to lose a 2017 series to the Blue Jays.
So let's move on. We greet the A's. Have some Split-Licking-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
I cannot even bring up the snark to the news that Billy Eppler has made some kind of move. The Angels have added RHP David Hernandez to the roster. These kind of moves have been overwhelmingly numerous over the past many months. Rarely bold. All too often wait and see. I blame the Fear Factor of Arte Moreno, now too timid to accept the pain of erasing his own mistakes and preventing his staff from going bold. So we sit. And wait. And see.........
Dodger fan, writing for Forbes (so he's getting his info from here?), is tired of hearing folks try and compare Bryce Harper to Mike Trout. For a Dodgers fan, he makes a decent point. The kind of point we have already mastered here at HH..............
Speaking of Mike, how's he doing lately? Killing it, as a matter of fact. Now, if we could just a couple more oars into the water..........
Minor Trout Porn: The Velociraptor is testing the fences at new locations again. "So, early Trout: more aggressive, with more contact out of the zone, and more balls hit the other way. His numbers are fantastic."..........
More Trout Porn..........
Even more Trout Porn...........
The Angels have dropped all the way down to #27 on the power rankings. Not even worthy of a comment. So I'll comment. Sitting right behind them at #28 are the Blue Jays, and we all just saw what happened between the Angels and Blue Jays in a head-to-head. Our goal, I guess, is to find a way to stay ahead of the Padres and Giants...........
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Everywhere In Baseball
Keith Law has published a new book, the review of which sounds like a step up on your journey deeper into Sabremetrics. There are probably things in there that you already know, and a bunch of things you didn't know. Most of all, it might serve as a guide to future conversations around the game of baseball............Law himself hosted an AMA yesterday. Sorry that I was not around to give you any lead time..............
This is a long one, but thoroughly enjoyable. FanGraphs takes us on journey to compare modern ballparks from their predecessors, making note of the fact that the seating designs are moving more fans further away from the actual playing surface. It does this with a series of simple cutaway graphics of various stadiums, showing us that things used to actually be better for people who went to a baseball stadium to do the primary thing of watching baseball games...........
This is an even longer one, and the epitome of TL;DR. So I will sum it up for you. Jeff Passan is royally pissed off at the short suspension given to Matt Barnes for throwing at Manny Machado's head Sunday night. (Good reason. Balls to the head are horrible. Think Matt Shoemaker!) And the Player's Union needs to shut down the unwritten rules because it's gonna risk costing players a lot of money...............
Wait, though! Let's not leave this topic quite yet. Check out this humorous breakdown over at Baseball Prospectus that gives us a review of all the other characters in the Sunday drama. The teenagers behind home plate, yeah, those are kids who are there to watch baseball, and they are paying attention. They know what's going on well before the umpire..........
Steve Dublar, once an All-Star, now joining Starling Marte on the 80-game suspension list for testing positive for something. All explained away as an accident. As in: "I had no way of knowing that shit I was not supposed to be taking was an uncontrolled crapshoot that included shit that could help me more than I was trying to be helped."...........Dublar should stick to Coconut Water. And hope that it is MLB-approved Coconut Water...........
Really? All that is necessary for our power hitters to become super powers, ala Eric Thames, is some plate discipline? This is some seriously magic shit. Somebody send Sosh a tweet.............
Once upon a recent time I mocked the idea that the Mets were a serious contender. And then doubled down and mocked their success. And then they landed in the World Series. So what that only now they are what I thought they are? I ain't gonna mock the Rockies any more............
Madison Bumgarner's cycle accident might not have been covered in his current contract, but the odds are it's going to impact his contracts going forward...........
Oh sure. Baseball once had tie games. But is that the reason we should bring them back? People used to have to write about community recreational activities using quill pens and ink. If we are going to consider which antiquated ideas are worthy of bringing back, I suggest that the author of the link consider the latter............
Albert Belle truly had some periods to be feared. If you were going to build a Hall of Fame for the 1990's he'd be there..........
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The Duffle Bag
So what is it with beach balls and a strong wind, anyway? Clearly, young Mr. D.J. Wilson did not grow up near a beach..........Barry Bonds is getting a street named after him in San Francisco. The jokes write themselves. My contribution is: "PEDestrian Walkway"............So sometimes people names their kids after famous scientists. And sometimes those kids become ballplayers. So what? My house rule is that if anybody brings a cat into the family the critter is also named after some famous scientist. Doesn't mean I'm gonna write an article about it............Tim Tebow is outhitting Albert Pujols. Kinda...........Just what the worlds needs, a clock that is wrong all the time............
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