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A rather nice outing by JC Ramirez yesterday. 9 K's and only 2 Earned Runs over 5 1/3 innings to lead the Angels to a 5-2 win in the rubber-match over the Rangers, taking another key series. Jefry Marte was the offensive key with a 2-run base hit plus a solo home run. And Andrelton Simmons was conducting some pretty chill defense. So it was a nice weekend. And, if I am not making too much of it, a nice realization that Napoli's anti-Sosh mojo has finally faded.
A lump of fun factoids. LAA starting pitchers have an ERA of 2.25 since the April 21st game. Skaggs has pitched 12 innings and given up 3 Earned Runs, Ramirez has pitched 12.1 innings and given up only 2. Blake Parker has given up only 1 Earned Run since the April 4th game. That is across 10.1 innings, including yesterday. Meanwhile, Mike Trout has a 14 game hitting streak in effect, sure, but all season long he has only 3 games where he has gone hitless. He has the 2nd highest Batting Average in the League, the second highest On Base Percentage, the second highest Slugging Percentage, and the second highest OPS - all versus 3 different players. With 36 hits he leads the AL and is one off the pace for all of MLB. He is tied for 2nd in Doubles in the AL, tied for 3rd in Triples and Home Runs. And, by the way, Mike Trout has now leaped to #1 on the season in fWAR, where he joins his own leadership at #1 in bWAR.
The Angels, at 7-3 over the last 10 games, are tied with Cleveland as the hottest team in the league, and now they are off to Seattle, so we can wrap a little bit of fish.
Have some Dun-Messin'-with-Texas Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News, where 14-13 is always better than 6-14
Tyler Skaggs hit the 10-day DL. That's at least 1 start. Just a little tightness in his side. Mike Scioscia is not going to jump to any conclusions quite yet. Skaggs is actually going to the DL along with CJ Cron, putting the Angels in the posiiton of possibly having to put Albert Pujols in the field. With a glove. And ask him to use it.............
The time off should give Skaggs a little more time to work on his Scooby Snacks.............
Good on Cameron Maybin. Connecting with the community pretty quick. My kind of guy. A little more offense and he would be perfect............
Did you miss the moment when Albert Pujols was going off on Rangers catcher Chi Chi Gonzalez after Yu Darvish issued up some chin music Saturday night?............
Yahoo! jumping on board the Mike Trout Porn Publishing express train to the HoF.............And with 5 years in the business now, here's 5 of his most historic plays..............Trout is so good even FanGraphs is trying to dream up anybody else to talk about..............
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Everywhere In Baseball
It seems to me that if Eric Thames went through an eye-hand coordination retraining while in Korea, he is bound to go back through another one back here in MLB. So while he is off to a rocketing start, that's a 3-year contract he is signed to and that last year might be the one to watch if you want to know if it's a bargain or bust........
Chippy. Chris Archer tossed a pitch behind Jose Bautista yesterday. Bautista was all attitude about it, and Jose's manager, John Gibbons, wants MLB to suspend Archer. I keep reading all this stuff about how somebody is going to end up getting really hurt bad if this plunking keeps up. So I want to put this to you. I did the research and added it all up and can tell you that there have been 105,580 batters Hit By Pitch throughout the recorded history of MLB right up to Opening Day this year. I can think of only 4 gargantuan injuries from batters getting hit by a pitch (Ray Chapman, dying, Tony Conigliaro and Kirby Pucket and J.T. Snow getting smacked in the face, breaking bones), and I'm not sure any of those 4 were intentional. I'm not convinced that any Actuarial would read those numbers and decide that HBP is incredibly dangerous. Meanwhile, what would happen elsewhere on the field of play over time if players knew that one of their brethren was not going to take a punch in the ribs anymore is they went into a bag cleats up?...............
Well this little episode didn't turn out well. Do you remember all that hype about Noah Syndergaard working out in the offseason to increase his physical strength and, thus, his pitching speed? Well, Syndergaard had been throwing flames, indeed. One of the Top 3 fastest average pitchers in MLB. Uh, well, something snapped the other day. Then Syndergaard snapped at the idea of getting an MRI to check it out. He pitched again, and something snapped even harder. Big mistake by the Mets to let the athletes overrule the doctors. And Terry Collins snapped at the entire situation............
Ken Rosenthal brings us some John Smoltz regarding the Syndergaard injury. My takeaway statment from the link is this one: " Teams reward velocity, valuing it far more than any other pitching attribute. Their obsession trickles down to the youth levels. Private companies such as Perfect Game hold year-round showcases and tournaments, encouraging young athletes to play baseball and only baseball...Hence, the broken generation...'(In the past), each pitcher was given the opportunity to learn what kind of pitcher they were going to be,' Smoltz said, 'Now they’re all robots.' "..........
So we go from the Noah Syndergaard story, to the John Smoltz observation, and nail a three point Spidey landing directly on top of a college pitcher striking out 20 batters on 123 pitches. Everybody is excited. Everybody will want to track this kid on their prospect charts. And this kid is John Smoltz' worst nightmare..............
Caveat Emptor. MLB has flipped from PITCHF/x to StatCast to track and document pitch results. And the new system is having some serious growing pains. It really sucks in tracking vertical location. Hell, even CB Buchnor can do that...........
I always wondered why it is that catchers don't make great hitters, seeing as it is that they are most familiar with what it looks like to have a baseball thrown at them, AND they know what is going through the mind of the plate umpire that day. As it happens, catchers are turning into the more disciplined hitters in baseball, but that is because they are not becoming undisciplined at the same rate as other position players............
Anthony Rendon had a kick-ass game yesterday. That's going to be THE story the Rendon porch is going to enjoy for the first few decades anyway, before the grandkids come along and get of hearing about it..............
The Astros have a shift unlike the rest of baseball. They have a second gear, with a shift of their outfield.............
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The Duffle Bag
Video board proposal fail in Fenway. Perfect........Eric Hosmer is not having the quintessential contract year.............Shelby Miller, Dave Stewart's personal Waterloo, is hitting the TJ DL for certain.............Adam Eaton lost for the season with a torn ACL. From running. Straight. Pro athletes............The Rockies just caught a huge scheduling break from Mother Nature.............Madison Bumgarner avoided surgery, but he will be out longer than originally expected. He will probably have his dirt bike repaired by then............Derek Jeter might not have the financing to take on the Marlins after all.............Freddie Freeman puts down a total diss of Miller Park, home of the Brewers.............Yadier Molina embarrasses the shit out of Eugenio Suarez............Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio implied Eric Thames of the Brewers might be a juicer, and that really pissed off Chris Bosio's employers...............
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