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It's too bad that was a day game, because it was great baseball. It's the kind of stuff I miss in December, staring at the fireplace hoping the Christmas tree does not ignite.
As the Angels won 5-1, we had.....Ben Revere making a great catch in Center Field.....C.J. Cron with a 2-run blast, snatched up by a fan holding his cellphone in his mouth, WHILE STILL ON THE PHONE!.....Newcomer Cesar Puello gets his first MLB base hit and RBI, game winner to boot.....
As the Angels won 5-1, we had.....Troy Scribner going 5 innings, giving up only 2 hits and 1 earned run, with no walks and 4 K's.....Yusmeiro Petit, Keynan Middleton and Blake Parker going the other 4 innings, 0 runs on 2 hits with 5 K's.....Ben Revere making a great catch in Center Field.....C.J. Cron with a 2-run blast, snatched up by a fan holding his cellphone in his mouth, WHILE STILL ON THE PHONE!.....Newcomer Cesar Puello gets his first MLB base hit and RBI, game winner to boot.....Andrelton Simmons on yet another relay crushing the hopes of Craig Gentry trying to score at home..........And, of course, we get to watch Mike Trout play baseball.
The Angels? They are off to Seattle. In style...........
Have some Still-On-The-Verge-Of-A-Wildcard Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
I must confess, the imagination among the players leaves a lot to be desired. Those are some pretty lame LAA nicknames. My guess is that they were reviewed, filtered or 'suggested' by MLB representatives.............
Let's call it out again. Eppler upgraded his lineup by calling up Cesar Puello from Salt Lake, allowing Scioscia to give Pujols a game off. Puello promptly got his first MLB base hit and RBI (which proved to be the winning run), and then decided to steal the first couple of bases, too. Most exciting of all was stealing third base. I love that ballsy shit............You probably didn't know what a Cesar Puello even was, so the Bees sent us all a letter of introduction..........
Parker Bridwell reflects on his time with the Orioles, the process of landing in Anaheim, and the differences between then and now. All with class. And, yes, Parker, you have "...been doing somewhat of a decent job...this year."
Andrelton Simmons is having a season for the ages, and nobody had noticed except MLB.com..........
Josh Mayhood's Library of Mike Trout Hagiography
Mike trout has an outside chance at MVP still. And he could even do it without qualifying for the batting title. There are precedents. Funy observation for me in that linked article, where early on the author admits that his projections just as of last Friday are already out of date and Mike is exceeding expectations of the models already. This was something I commented upon when I linked to the earlier article a few days back............
Mike Lupica is the kind of guy who only believes in his heroes, if his heroes dance to his particular melody. He won't believe in Trout unless Trout saves the World Series. Someday the likes of Ernie Banks, Rod Carew and Ken Griffey, Jr. will be having a word with him........
[In Batting Title Qualifying news, Trout stands at 310 PA's with 192 still needed. Playing all games he now needs to average 4.08511, up from 4.08000 after that Oakland series.]
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Everywhere In Baseball
That Trevor Story Eric Thames Aaron Judge phenomenon has fallen off the cliff, and everybody is wondering what to do with all their fun stuff they were gathering for the November celebrations.............We have a study revealing for us common fans what Baseball (and the Yakees) must already know full well: Judge has a huge hole on pitches up, and hates sliders...........Tim Brown blames Judge's size. He's tired. Sure thing, Tim...........Judge will end up being Ok. Just doubtful he will ever have a half like he did earlier this year. It was fun. But it ain't his career trajectory. And readers will note that the lack of any similar disappearing act is precisely why Mike Trout is legitimately incredible...........
Not every player is having a nickname on their back during Player's Weekend. Some guys just hate fun...........At least Kyle Seager has a sense of humor..........By the way, the Yankees will finally have jerseys with NOBs..........Personally, I would have liked it if we fans had a say in these nicknames. 'Rat Face', 'Needle Beef', 'Boaty McBoatface', what could possibly go wrong?............
Deadspin reported - and I went and confirmed - that fans can buy their own copies of these nickname Little League jerseys....as long as they are dudes or kids. MLB Shop is not offering the products in Women's sizes. Women have to wait until MLB decides to get around to y'all............
Here we go. Disney now controls BAMTech. BAMTech will now give us all one game a night via streaming - as long as you are an ESPN customer. And here you thought that cutting your cord was going to set you free. Silly you............
Oh, and something else you probably didn't expect. All that money that MLB got for selling out to Disney/ESPN? Yeah, the owners are keeping all of it, thankyouverymuch..........
Baseball players marketing themselves brings to mind the question: does Mike Trout have his own publicist or social media adviser? If it were me, I would be all over The Weather Channel trying to get my client some face time. I'd have him doing workouts or chasing storms with Jim Cantore. I'd get tornadoes named after him ("We've got a Trout Twister here, Jen!"), which I would then flip and have his home runs tweeted with Fujita Scale numbers ("Trout launches an F4 to deep left-center field!")...........
R.I.P. Ken Kaiser..........
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The Duffle Bag
Every MLB team paired with their most appropriate beer. Before you LAA fans get your panties in a bunch, like I did, read the justification. Even though it's obviously written by a beer snob, it's dead on............In quite the contrast to what is going on elsewhere in Baaseball, one town is kicking their minor league team out of their stadium so that they can use it, instead, for a few summer concert dates..........That Joe West suspension for his quote about the time he joked with Adrian Beltre in a game? Adrian Beltre wants you to know that Joe West was joking..........Yeah, Ok. Everybody watch the cat video............
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Jordan Serena Destiny Watch
Jordan Serena, not having played since August 6th, was called in to pinch-hit in the bottom of the 9th with the 66ers behind and the tying run on 2nd base. A very cold Serena struck out, but his presence clearly unnerved Lake Elsinore pitcher Gerardo Reyes, who walked the next batter on 4 straight pitches to load the bases. So immediately after Serena had psyched Reyes into loading the bases, putting the tying run on 3rd and the winning run on 2nd, the next batter - Michael Barash - swung at the first thing he saw and flied out to end the game, with the 66ers losing to the Storm, 6-5............
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