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The Angels are in New York this weekend, to face the Mets at Citi Field. This is Mike Trout's Citi Field career debut. Mets fans have been watching Citi Field brutalize Bryce Harper for some time now, and this is their first chance to get face time seeing what all the fuss is about concerning this guy who plays while they are sleeping.
Let's enjoy some Say-Hello-To-Terry-Collins Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Commander Mayhood has launched a journalistic revolution. Yesterday he noted that Mike Trout is having the best year of his career, and he points out that nobody is talking about it. So immediately we find Deadspin jumping on the bandwagon, alerting everybody that Mike Trout is having the best year of his career.....That was followed up almost immediately by CBS Sports pimping out Mike Trout is playing like Mickey Mantle and much of America may be missing it.........And, not to be left out, The Ringer gets in on the action. Mike Trout Is Hitting Better Than Ever.....So keep it going, Mayhood! Oh, and for the record, hey Matt Snyder of CBS Sports: if the sporting world is missing out on anything fantastic about Mike Trout, blame your own employer...............
Angels added something that might resemble an arm to their roster yesterday. Doug Fister was signed on. It's a Major League Deal, so I suppose we have to take this one seriously. So, for starters, I'm going to link to the guy who broke the story, which was NOT the L:A Times or OC Register or ESPN/NBC/CBS/FOX. And did I say ESPN? Yeah. ESPN, forever the jackanapes of misappropriation report the Fister signing by way of "...a source told ESPN's Buster Olney."..........
Tyler Skaggs is cleared to run. Which would be a great thing if his forte was stealing bases.............
Trout porn stat of the day..........
Victor living well while in NYC on an off day..............
The Angels open tonight at Citi Field, facing the Mets. On the one hand, the Mets are a mere 16 and 23, having just lost 7 in a row. On the other hand, 6 of those losses came to hot teams...AND...the Angels have to send their pitchers to the plate so that they can try and hit a baseball...........By the way, this is Mike Trout's Citi Field career debut............
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Everywhere In Baseball
Remember the days when Bud Selig would call a meeting to consider forming a commission to look into some issue, and three years later we would learn that the commission was ready to render a recommendation that further research be considered? Those days appear to be gone. Wednesday night Kevin Pillar lost it and shouted a homphobic slur in a game.....Hand wringing ensued.....More hand wringing ensued.....The MLB jumped into action and launched an investigation......Within hours it was confirmed.....Within minutes of that Pillar was suspended...and Pillar is immediately apologizing.............All this over Pillar not liking a quick pitch. On the one hand, I wish all our MLB deliberations were as efficient. And on the other hand, tough shit about a quick pitch, dude. You're in the box where you should be. Game on............
Hold on to your butts! MLBAM is coming at you with a VR service via Google DayDream. You will get the game in HD, and the At bat strike zone folly as a 3D cube..........
Right as I brag about Freddie Freeman, who is having a brilliant first quarter, being a fellow HS alum, some knucklehead goes and busts up his wrist and outs him out for 2-3 months..........
Tony Reagins is having a positive impact? Youth participation is on the rise. That's his formal MLB responsibility.........
Friday Night Baseball is coming to Facebook. No blackouts as long as you live in the United States (what about Toronto fans?). Knowing the way that services like Facebook tend to screw things up initially, that United States rules will probably still exclude eyespy. Because he's over in Hawaii .The service starts tonight with Rockies @ Reds.........
I'm going with "No". Jose Bautista is having a shitty season. His team is down by 5 runs very late. He hits a home run and tosses a major bat flip. The article asks the question: Ok or no? My answer: not Ok. And guess what? Bautista is total agreement that he was being kinda douchy. Notice that before he even loses complete grasp of his bat he is freaking out at what he is doing. And then he has to go around the bases felling like an ass and catching shit. And he gets to the plate and admits it was his bad. Not enough, say the Braves, still carrying the Brian McCann torch for the Book of Unwritten Rules. They plunked him the very next day..........
It does not require a rocket scientist to be able to interpret the news that Rob Manfred wants to change the posting system for Japanese players, that what that really means is that Manfred and the owners want to curb back the money it costs them to acquire players beyond the control of any international draft. The Japanese club and the player have far too much leverage at the moment, and the owners - those titans of free market enterprise - want that to change...........Manfred also confessed that his tinkering to try and speed up the pace of games is driving results in the wrong direction. We fans can whine all we want about enforcing things such as the batters box rule, but MLB officials, umpires and players already know all about things like that must be ignoring them for a reason (probably one they don't want us to know about else we would have heard). Since they have to avoid all of the obvious stuff, there's a good deal of brainpower in search of anything else.............
Maybe beating PECOTA was never a Mike Scioscia thing. Maybe it was a Mark Trumbo thing?..............
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The Duffle Bag
Rangers fan pulling an imitation of Leury Garcia..........The Nats are looking to trade for a closer? Daniel Wright for Daniel Murphy? Too much?..........MLB goes out of their way to create extra cuteness for select holidays. Then MLB goes out of their way to shut down players using their extra cute holiday gear when their extra holiday is over..............The late Willie Stargell's family is auctioning off his memorabilia, including world series trophies and rings..............It used to be that "getting snubbed" by a tourney selection committee meant not getting invited at all. These days it means not getting the specific slot you want..............Nothing says baseball like a hot dog and...a cold beer?
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Jordan Serena Destiny Watch
J-Ser getting himself some media coverage. I'd call it "MSM coverage", but how mainstream can it be if you are the Bristol Herald Courier? Maybe, instead, what we are seeing here is J-Ser making the Herald-Courier "mainstream". Pay attention to the fact that the BHC is based all the way over in Bristol, Virginia. I really don't know what it is about news outlets in Virginia, but they do love themselves some auto-bot sports reporting. Anyway, J-Ser is making national waves!
Jordan Serena went 0 for 4 last night as the 66'ers dropped the rubber game in their series with the Ports, 7-8.
That other just dances............But he does draw crowds. Is it really possible the eventual doormat Mets would do a September call up, just for the fun of it?
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