Thor'sLinks: Halos smoke Dodgers

The air around Orange County was thick with brush fire smoke from a pair of moderate fires upwind. In that acrid haze the Dodgers and Angels dueled through pitching efforts, complete opposites of one another but with the same result. The Dodgers' Hyun-Jin Ryu through masterful junk (aided in large part to a confusing strike zone) held the Angels nearly hitless and absolutely scoreless. Meanwhile, Alex Meyer was all over the place, walking a loopy tightrope through 3,967 pitches to keep the Dodgers off the scoreboard and equally hit shy.

And then the home run parade began. Andrelton Simmons put the Angels up 2-0 in the 6th.

Trayce Thompson sol homered off of Keynan Middleton in the 8th.

And with 2 outs in the 9th, and one strike from victory, Cam served up a 2016 vintage Shit-The-Bedrosian meatball to Yasmani Grandal who solo homered to tie things up. And that was ANOTHER home run that Mike Trout has caught in the past!

9 frames of offense out of the Dodgers, only 4 hits allowed to them. But 2 of those came in the 8th and 9th frames and both went yard. SMH.

Fortunately, we had the weirdest walk-off win imaginable. WIth Ben Revere on 2B, Pedro Baez strikes out Cameron Maybin on a pretty wild pitch. The ball gets away from Grandal and Maybin - brilliantly! - intentionally stuck around at home plate before taking off to first late, daring Grandal to try and throw him out. By this time Revere was alraedy over at 3B. Grandal's throw went wildly high just as Maybin knew it would all along, and Revere came home with the winning run. That's Cameron Maybin setting up the classic strike-out-dash-to-first-and-draw-the-wild-throw-so-that-the-runner-from-second-scores gambit. Smartest man in the field. Probably had that play in his pocket since Little League, just waiting to pull it out.

More of the Lost Weeks Links:

A Little Bit of Angels News

Mike Trout tracking to get back onto the field before the All-Star game (the big red star below on the tracker). Checking for related tweets, though, here is little more granularity on his status.........Trout was also spotted outside the Stadium, just being a regular guy..........

Yeah, Cameron Maybin, make yourself right at home. You, too, EYJ. At least until Trout gets back. Then I don't know WHAT happens. But isn't it refreshing to see brand name guys who were castoffs elsewhere FINALLY be the good guys in Anaheim? (And I'm looking at you, Matt Joyce.).........

And just when I was wondering where is any news on Matt Shoemaker, we get this..........

And Bud Norris is due back soon, as well..........

Just a reminder: Chavez Ravine is full of asshats.............

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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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Ok, here we go. Two days ago the Nats ran wild on the Cubs. 7 stolen bases in one game. It was a big deal. And pretty embarrassing afterwards, when Cubs catcher Miguel Montero was catching heat from the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately Chicago media. Montero blames pitcher Jake Arrieta (not without justification). Well, calling out teammates in front of non-teammates is the kind of thing that gets ballplayers all riled up, and Anthony Rizzo chimed in to straighten things out by calling out teammate Montero in front of 3 billion non-teammates. The Cubs, looking for angles on why they are not the fashionable juggernaut of just 12 months ago, took immediate action. They canned Montero. Because Cubs management has the backs of Cubs players. Unless, of course, Cubs players might have the chance to take Cubs management for a few extra dollars...........So who is right? FanGraphs breaks it down and informs us that Arrieta IS atrociously slow. He also doesn't seem too concerned with holding runners close. Montero sucks, but he is not even given a fighting chance..............So the Cubs will switch backup catchers and runners will get caught a tiny bit more often with Arrieta pitching and nobody will notice a thing. Unless it's the Nats again and they use their speed to steal 8. And Montero? Yeah, he has a real problem..........Meanwhile, MSM scribes sure are quick to side with management when it comes to personnel issues concerning teams they adore. I am old enough to remember newspaper labor strikes, so this is kind of odd...........Sam Miller with the best joke on the issue..........Finally: interesting observation..........

MLB Umpire John Tumpane saved a woman's life yesterday, talking her away from jumping off the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh. He then went to the ballpark and called balls & strikes in the Rays vs. Pirates game..........

So earlier we linked to an article which suggested that Clayton Kershaw might no longer be the best pitcher in all of Baseball. Today: counterpoint. Tonight, we experience it for ourselves..........

In case you need to see it in pictures, this thing about strikeouts is rather alarming..........But, then again, maybe it's just a sporty new fashion trend, eh Jose Altuve?..........

Sean Newcomb now throws strikes. Often. Great news for the Braves, and good news for the LAA Farm reputation..........

Justin Verlander could be traded. Remember when you would hear a story like that and wonder how a guy like that might prop up a broken rotation such as ours? Ah, sigh...the days of a deep farm..........

Do you know what's real fun about seeing these amazing pictures of an extremely dangerous storm over Fenway? the fact that I am sitting in California...........

Yasiel Puig's one-game suspension for flipping off the fans has been eliminated. A simple fine, instead. I guess Joe Torre reads HaloLinks and was embarrassed by how I called him out for suspending Puig for flipping the bird but not Anthony Rizzo for violating the Posey Rule and clocking padres catcher Austin Hedges right out of the game..........

Guys get hurt on one team at an alarming rate, and FINALLY somebody wants to know why the trainers are not being held accountable?..........

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Hell hath no fury like a bunch of women at a Bachelorette viewing party, forced to watch baseball..............Yep. I agree already. I used to hit FOX Sports several times a day for different takes on daily stories. No more. Bad and late Youtube..........Tom Ricketts and Ted Cruz, separated at birth..........Braves announcer gets roasted for roasting stadium organist.  Wait! The brand-new Braves stadium still has an organist??..........Tim Tebow, playing DH in his first High A game, is a hit. Well, one anyway. Thank heavens ESPN is there to not miss it. And then, in his second game, he homered...........Playoff beer can thrower banned for life, from all of baseball. That's worse than Pete Rose. I wonder how they plan to enforce it?..........Bobbleheads are serious, man.............This Atlanta League guy plays Mike Trout inspired baseball..........T-ball triple play? Wow. And it was almost unassisted! The part I do NOT get, however, is why there is a State Tournament for T-ball??..........We should have one of these as an official LAA giveaway. We gotta be the MLB leader in this category the past couple of seasons.............Holy crap. The jackanape who will not go away is about to make history in a very positive way..........3B Nolan Arenado throws out a batter...lying down?..........Bryce Harper trolling Cubs fans is such fun..........