Once again, an argument can be made that the Angels out-pitched the opposition, but failed to out-hit them. This was not supposed to be our primary concern this season, coming in with an already damaged rotation. And it was not supposed to be our story after the first couple of weeks, as that damaged rotation imploded 2016-style. But here we are. Once more a starter blisters the other batting order, but gets clustered up with an offense that cannot score itself. Of course, it's an LAA offense that didn't have Mike Trout in the lineup. Hey, baseball, how's THAT for "valuable"??
Angels lose 3-2. Moving on.
You people catch up with ZzzQuil Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Thank you, Kendall Graveman, for adding Andrelton Simmons to the injury list. Day-to-day and probably will play tonight, but he did miss some innings last night..........Looking at the list on the team BBR page ("Current Injuries") is a pretty impressive set of talent. Graveman putting Simmons on that list makes for enough talent that could take most teams and turn them into a playoff contender. And how many other teams can say that?.........
An MRI on Trout's hamstring showed everything to be Ok. Which is all you need to read for your radar to ping off the chart..........Briefly on Monday, there was word he would play last night. As the day wore on that got moved to Tuesday. And still we watch the clock..........
Matt Shoemaker feels he's almost back to being the pitcher he was last year. I love me my Shoey, but shouldn't somebody inform him that Spring Training ended 37 days ago?...........
Trout Porn. Walking right past the elite and into the inner-most circle of all time...........
You watched that game last night, right? Paid attendance is listed at 10,292. How many people do you guess actually moved the turnstiles? 4,000?..........
C.J. Wilson probably got in quite a bit of competition driving school over the past couple of non-seasons..........
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Everywhere In Baseball
Jeremy Guthrie gives us a look inside what it's like to come face to face with the end of one's baseball career...........Which is the kind of thing that Ryan Howard is going to need to understand real, real soon............
Derek Jeter has one regret from his entire career. And, no, don't be so snarky. It's not his inability to field his position..........
John Paschal at The Hardball Times discovers that as soon as one starts to pay attention, suddenly they realize just how YankSox biased baseball media coverage can be. The worst part about his study, however, is that he is researching the broadcast arm for ALL 30 TEAMS. Now, it's pretty easy to jump in the meme and argue that these are two teams with fans everywhere, and they are the ones who draw ratings, blah blah blah. But the very reason that media analysts argue back against what is perceived to be lower ratings for baseball compared to other majors sports - that baseball is a regional affection and affiliation! - is the reason that imposing one region on the rest of us is so shit-brained pathetic. Why is it that my $2 phone apps are smart enough to know how to behave for regional markets but a multi-billion dollar enterprise cannot be bothered?...........
The Red Sox plan for proving to the rest of the world that their fans are not the biggest bigots in sport looks like pretty weak theater. Spank the party and force them to switch to a different credit card going forward. I understand the dilemma. Soon enough the full population of racial abusers the self-identify in Fenway will become a rogue's gallery that would overwhelm anybody's photo wall. Facial recognition software would fix this. Just ask Vegas.But that would require a slightly more serious commitment, and one that might cost a little money. So a moment of inconvenience, and some Pedro Martinez shaming (seriously, Pedro, wasn't Boston's history of bigotry on your history test?) Forget busing. Just ask around among your fellow athletes.)............
K-Rod might finally be on the verge of having his career fall off the cliff. And it's important to note that is won't be because of the violence of his pitch mechanics, as so many around here were cock sure to insist upon back when he was ours. But he has had an excellent career, and it's a good time to review............
Baseball games last until they are over. Period. You want something to end in time to watch Dancing With The Stars at it's regularly scheduled start time? Pick another sport and leave us alone. We don't need hyper-active New Yorkers changing an entire sport on the rest of us just so they don't have to record Dancing With The Stars. Maybe we should force the whiners to follow cricket, where matches can take days..........Keep in mind that the Angels had a near 5-hour game last week that was only 10 innings. And also keep in mind that the MLB corporate offices are in New York, as would be the people who decide on schedules and would be the ones who fail to allot enough travel time between games...........
Hey, Sports Illustrated, let me help you with that. No, there is no maybe about it. Josh Hamilton is done. The only reason that he didn't check out two years ago was that he still had $42 million coming his way to go through the pretense. But now that we are beyond that, watch out for the blow back when you write something such as: "...but particularly given his history of finding trouble when unmoored from the game’s day-to-day structure, the greater concern should be for his well-being. Whether or not we’ve seen the last of him in uniform, here’s hoping for the best." That's the kind of thinking that ends up with you in the #cesspool..........
Rather bold of Baseball Prospectus. The walk back through time to the hey day of Ernesto Frieri with the Angels, and Rob Neyer (then writing at SB Nation) using Frieri as his "canary in the mine" to predict that baseball was changing towards more strikeouts and more pitching changes. As BP notes, he was correct. But also as BP notes, Neyer predicted rule changes to counteract the inertia. Also as BP notes, Neyer was wrong about that part. BP has concluded that MLB juiced the baseballs in 2015 and has not looked back. And they are using those juiced balls still. BP is strong in this belief and they are using Ryan Schimpf as the new "canary"...........
Food for thought: as I was reading through this review of the evolving economics in the broadcasting market, where ESPN is contrasted to Netflix, I wonder if the various sports leagues - owners and creator of the content - will be capable of charging anything near what ESPN charges now to be their media distribution arm? And by that I mean anything near as low? We bitch about ESPN and how they are the worst offender within the forced bundling fees imposed upon cable consumers. But it's only 7 bucks a subscriber (on average) and that is more than just one sport. So, for example, will MLB ever be in a position where they become the sole source for baseball broadcast subscriptions and can present a package that ends up being only 7 bucks a month for even just one sport?..........
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The Duffle Bag
The baseball thing, destined to not work out, needs a backup plan. Tim Tebow's is to stick around at ESPN. Since ESPN is abandoning baseball AND, at the same time, extending Tebow, we clearly see ESPN's opinion of Tebow's future..........Kevin Pillar demonstrates for us all that if you are going to run all the way over there, you might as well lay out to catch the damn ball...........The day that Matt Harvey called in sick, the Mets sent some dudes to his house to check up and see of he was telling the truth. They found Harvey in his PJ's..........If a situation is high leverage, by definition it's high leverage for everyone. So if the opposition is in full focus and full effort, wouldn't it be considered clutch to be able to hold one's statistical norm in the face of all that counter-effort?..........Kevin Kiermaier, shame on you. That HAS to hurt his dWAR.........Rockies and Cubs iced out. It's May, people.............Aaron Hicks hoping that he finds where Javier Baez' fly ball was to be found. Didn't work...........
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Our NEW Jordan Serena Watch!
J-Ser, our 24-year 3B prospect who was recently moved from Class A Burlington in the MidWest League to the Class A Advanced Inland Empire 66'ers of the California League, has been on fire since his upgrade. He's 9 for 25 (.360) with 2 doubles, 2 triples and a walk, carrying an OPS of .985. That's clearly the kind of thing that should have East Coast scribes going gaga, judging by their own baseline for hype-o-logy. Comparably, Serena is Superb! And he's all ours!!
You would have heard a great more about Serena had there not been a red hot Team Israel in the recent WBC. Serena had earned a spot on Team Great Britain which was parked in the same pool as team Israel along with Teams Brazil and Pakistan. (Colorado native J-Ser handling a WBC post-game here, and working on his cliches, where his attempt at a British accent sounds more like Brooklyn.) I should add that you probably had to look quickly to catch Serena in the WBC. His 4 games were back in September, during qualifying, where he went 0 for 13 with 2 strikeouts and 3 walks while leaving 10 Englishmen stranded on base.
I can't wait to track down our next update..........
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