Thor'sLinks: Yankees can't rob Angels of the W

Sweetness abounds. That 7-5 victory over the Yankees last night, powered by a late Andrelton Simmons 2-run jack, gives the Angels their third series win in a row. Two against Division leaders. In the mix are some hot hands. Cameron Maybin was 2 for 5 with a run scored and a stolen base. Eric Young, Jr. was 2 for 3 with a stolen base, a run scored and 1 RBI and is now batting .333.

The Yankee Moment of the game came in the bottom of the first inning, when Aaron Hicks robbed Luis Valbuena of a Grand Slam. The (Yankee) crowd goes wild. It turned into a run-scoring sac fly, a run that would come in handy. I wasn't there last night due to a work conflict, but I have walked out of Angel Stadium with Yankee fans after an LAA win, LAA series in in the past and I know how fast their memories overlook defeat to focus on things like that play, as they chant "MVP!" walking down the concourse.

Speaking of which, g'bye, Mr. Judge. I almost wish you would stick around. In 27 innings of play you were 2 for 13 (1 for a home run), 4 runs scored, 5 strikeouts, 2 walks. Your BA dropped 6 points and you left 6 runners on base. And all against the most home-runningest giver-uppers in the entire league. But don't worry. In a few more days you will get to run back home to the Bronx where you will get to beat the crap out of our pitching staff in your own little matchbox of a stadium.

The game ended, then un-ended, when the NY replay review guy overruled the Yankees broadcast crew (see 1:45 of the clip), both of whom ended up concluding that Kole Calhoun had, indeed, caught an Aaron Hicks fly ball at the wall for the final out. This makes Victor pretty pissed off. Hicks would then double, bringing Aaron Judge up to bat as the tying run. Judge grounded out to end the game on the first pitch he saw. And the Angels twitter account trolled on...........

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A Little Bit of Angels News

The Angels have now finished drafting a whole lotta guys. Yesterday, what amounts to excitement comes from drafting some kid who once was considered a top prospect, but had fallen dramatically for various reasons (mostly health-related), but there is still a chance that he really really has secretly fixed everything and is a monster steal after all. I'd like to believe that. But, then I once believed that same thing about Matt Joyce............Oh, and Eppler drafted The Son of Tom Glavine. Might not sign him, but if we do we pick an extra pitching coach in the bargain.............

Uh, hell yeah. As impossible as this is to believe, Eric Young Jr. has filled the shoes vacated by an injured Mike Trout. "Young was worth 1.0 Wins Above Replacement through his first 15 games. That’s a 10.8-WAR pace over a full season, not far behind Trout, who was on an 11-WAR pace until his injury."..........

Do you what's another miracle? Our bullpen. FanGraphs agrees. "A bad bullpen has been mostly without its best relievers, yet it’s been a good bullpen. Okay. I don’t know. The numbers are what they are, and I’m sure there’s a lesson in this."..;........

The reason you saw Parker Bridwell pitch last night before turning the ball over to Blake Parker, was because the first Parker was called up and Mike Morin was sent down............

Mike Trout is still 3rd overall in ASG vote getting among AL players..........

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Josh Mayhood's Library of Mike Trout Hagiography

This section placed on hold indefinitely, in memory of Mike Trout's 2017 season. In the meantime, we provide The Jessica DeLine Trout Recovery Watch tracker. When will Mike be back?

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We all know that we are seeing a ton of home runs. The trend is undeniable but the explanations are rare. Until now. The first explanation is long overdue. We have a lot of bad pitchers in the Major Leagues these days. I blame the UCL plague taking down those who are supposed to be MLB pitchers...........And the other reason, after new research, is that, yes, the baseballs might just be juiced enough, after all. The killer quote: "The testing revealed significant differences in balls used after the 2015 All-Star break in each of the components that could affect the flight of the ball, in the directions we would have expected based on the massive hike in home run rate. While none of these attributes in isolation could explain the increase in home runs that we saw in the summer of 2015, in combination, they can.".........

What the hell is the matter with people? The big news yesterday was a mass assault during baseball practice for the Congressional Baseball Game. Keep in mind that this is an annual event designed to bring both parties together, which benefit us all, and the immediate winners are specific charities...........

Brad Asmus, manager in Detroit, is not a huge fan of advanced metrics. That said, he makes a couple of damned good points about the real-time use of closers. The first one is the  best, that it is not always so obvious when the highest leverage moment is in a game until the entire game is played out. We get to second-guess, but an Asmus has to manage the entire possible game, and he does so with incomplete information. The second point is walking across a table, versus walking across a table a thousand feet in the air. Yeah, I can do the former. No way I do the latter...........

This idea to eliminate baseball brawls calls for every player after the first two guys to suffer automatic suspensions. Oh, sure, it means that for a game or two some MLB squad needs to fill out its roster with Minor Leaguers. And, sure, that means that fans are paying Major League money for Minor League baseball. And, sure, it would totally screw some Minor League franchise owner at the gate and cost a bucketload of cash for travel and MLB minimum salary pro-rated pay checks. But those are just problems for other people. What we will get for sure, is to finally shut down the silly trot from the bullpens by two crews of guys who have no idea what the hell is happening, anyway...........

Still got the hype train running. Neither Mike Trout nor Bryce Harper are any answer to whatever question people keep needing to ask about Baseball. It's 60-game Aaron Judge. Because he is a Yankee. That's actually a stated justification..........Which leads us to...it doesn't really matter what happens over the remaining 63% of the season, Judge and Cody Bellinger are already unanimous Rookies of the Year..........

HS pitchers are hard not to draft. But they fail at high rates. Ok, the numbers in that article are important to note. But draft picks fail at alarming rates anyway. Even #1's are not sure things. How do they compare to HS draftees as a whole? How do they compare to ALL draftees as a whole? What are the numbers for college pitchers drafted, adding in time lost due to arm injury and how does injury rates compare to HS pitchers? If you find those answers in that article, point them out to me...........

If you build (a homer-friendly) stadium then, yes, homer-friendly home teams will win more games..........

Matt Harvey's suspension is over. Now he can go back to struggling in public. Oh wait, no he can't..........

DBacks trying to poach our legacy, draft Cole Percival..........More significant, here is how you now know how I feel. You are old. Remember Dusty Baker's cute little toddler son playing bat boy in the 2002 playoffs? The one almost run over int eh World Series?? That was Darren Baker. That cute little toddler is now old enough to have just been drafted by Baker's Nationals..........

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