Thor'sLinks: Halos split from DC, now go Yard

Things are looking up. First we got Tyler Skaggs back, and he has 3 decent outings giving up 5 earned runs over 15.1 innings across 3 games versus Oakland, Seattle and Washington. That's very promising. Tuesday night we saw the return of Andrew Bailey to the bullpen. In only his 4th appearance of the season, against the second-highest scoring team in all of baseball, Bailey went through his single inning of relief unscathed but for a single hit. Also promising. And now comes Andrew Heaney, who will start on Friday. Heaney lasted one single game in 2016, back on April 5th. He has been through TJ surgery and rehab and recovery and is now back in uniform. Finally. Let's refresh your memory on who Heaney is. in 2015 he started 18 games. He had an ERA of 3.49, and ERA+ of 108. On average per 9 innings, he gave up 8.4 hits, 0.8 home runs, 2.4 walks and 6.6 strikeouts. his WHIP was 1.202 Those were the lowest ERA of any starter on the 2015 staff, the highest ERA+, the lowest WHIP, the best HR/9 and the second-best SO/W. In short, it could be argued he was our best pitcher. And he is back. He has been solid in his SLC rehab starts, but give him a little time...........(And don't forget Garrett Richards is coming up, albeit still a ways back. What they can do with him that late in the season is beyond me at the moment.)

Jered Weaver surfs off into the sunset......Once upon a time, he came into our world of Major League Baseball as a top pitching prospect out of Long Beach State. Here is a look back at the young Weave.......Hopefully he finds enough peace away from the limelight to no longer have to deal with twitter tyrants............Wouldn't it be sweet to see him signed for roster expansions, and brought up for a single appearance in front of the home crowd in a non-playoff threatening situation, just so that his family and friends and all of us Halo fans could give him one final standing O send off of amazing gratitude? That walk from the bullpen would probably be as emotional as his no-hitter............

Albert reaches yet another milestone. This one tragically. The hobbling old man went pokily up the first base line the other night in Washington, becoming the all-time career leader at grounding into double plays..........

Josh Mayhood's Library of Mike Trout Hagiography

Aaron Judge is an historic player after all. More consecutive games with a K by a position player, ever...........

But he is back to hitting home runs again, so who cares, right? Certainly not MLB (below, not counting "Extended Cut: Judge's long homer", "Judge hits 117,mph rocket...", "Statcast: Judge's 457-foot homer" and "Judge's 3rd-deck homer", all also links on the MLB home page at that same time.)...........

I always have wondered what it is about the number 27 that attracted Mike Trout to a number already iconic in Anaheim? Well, don't ask ESPN, because when they went looking into why players "around the league" selected their particular uni #, ESPN chose to skip him. "Around the league", to ESPN, means 4 Red Sox, 4 Yankees, 3 Cubs, 3 Nationals, 2 Marlins, 2 Astros and a couple of Rockies with an Indian and Oriole throw in there somewhere. Maybe it's just because all those teams were in the same city while on a road trip to the West Coast or something............In that link, though, look what has to happen if a player wants to CHANGE their number!............

Let's have some NYC subway fun with pro players. For many a MFY rookie, the idea of taking the subway to work is too seductive. Then they try and do it, and get completely lost...........But Red Sox pitcher, Steven Wright? He's got it down............

Here is Grant Brisbee making fun of all the AL Wild Card candidates. Easy pickin's, sure, but since Grant is a fan of the Giants, working hard to be the worst team in all of Baseball, what else does he have to do?...........

Surprise! We have already found the next Instead-Of-Mike-Trout for non-LAA writers to celebrate: Boston's Rafael Devers. (Have I mentioned that he comes from the Mysterious Island of the Dominican Republic?)..........

Oh, here is a hell of a lot of math concerning price modeling against MLB player values. But the TL;DR version sums up to what I whine about all the time. Any particular player will have a different value to different teams based on team situations............

Gotta take notice of this. If you have that 82" LED fixed on the Angels game while there is a no-hitter happening elsewhere, wouldn't be nice to split that bad boy up into multiple screens and pretend you are a Vegas sports book? Say hello to ESPN and Apple TV...........

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Steal second, third and home in the same inning? I don't even know how to set that up as a play index search on BBR...........John Lackey - 38-year old John Lackey - goes on a base stealing adventure before he retires............New candidate for worst ceremonial first pitch, ever. But definitely the very best outcome!.............Holy shit. Dee Gordon with unassisted put out at first base, on a one-hopper. Why click the link? Because Dee Gordon plays SECOND BASE............The Miami Jeeters might not be making a bronze statue to honor a drunk boater after all............