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Andrew Heaney arrived on the scene last night to distract us from the shitty offense and remind us of what our starting rotation was supposed to look like. Over 6 innings of work, he allowed only 1 run on 2 hits, walking 3. But it was the 10 strikeouts out of a possible 18 total outs that was the brilliance. Of his 94 total pitches, 56 were spent going right after the I-would-rather-walk Oakland A's and thrown for strikes.
The LAA scoring came on a Kole Calhoun single, a Kaleb Cowart double, and another double by Ben Revere. Mike Trout had the night off. And Albert Pujols continued his recent run of men-on-base flailing. (Over his last 6 games, Pujols has been at the plate 13 times with runners on base, 8 of those times with runners in scoring position. 20 total baserunners with which to work. He has one single to show for it, and no RBIs. I have only worked back the last 16 games, but in those of the 28 runners in scoring position that Pujols has been granted, he has collected just 8 of them.)
But that was just enough offense to make things work for a very strong Heaney start, and a lock-down relief corps of Middleton, Petit and Parker. Those three went the final 9 outs and gave up only 2 hits, 2 walks versus 4 strikeouts (Parker striking out the side to close things up in the 9th) and no runs. Angels win 3-1. With the Yankees losing and the Twin Idle, the Halos gained a tad of ground in their effort to catch up with a WC spot.
Victory Links, baby:
A Little Bit of Angels News
If you strip out all the fantastic luck the Angels have had this season, they would be far, far out of the playoff race. No, really, that's what the stats say.......Lucky for us, not only have we got lots and lots of luck on our side, but we also have one of the easiest exiting schedules from here on out. Which stats tell us won't mean a damned thing. You figure it all out..........
Josh Mayhood's Library of Mike Trout Hagiography
Trout is slumping. This we know as, now, do more folk across the country.......The best line in the link would be: "And though, again, Scioscia doesn’t have a ton of obvious buttons to push when it comes to filling out his lineup card, the button that puts Pujols, a guy with a .656 OPS, behind Trout, a guy with a .452 OBP, cannot possibly be the right one."..........And everybody wants to notice a Mike that is not Trout. Some are counting (0 for 17), and Mike Scioscia - ever the insightful genius - brings calm to the situation by noting that Trout is "just missing pitches"............
I am already monitoring the MLB Auction site looking for "Player's Weekend" stuff going on sale, and look what I tripped across: a Trout game-used home run jersey. Sold yesterday. Winning bid = $10,320.00..........
With the Troutster taking last night off with a stiff neck (the result of colliding into the outfield wall over the weekend while NOT making a Kevin Pillar catch on Brian McCann's bases loaded heart crusher), Trout gets zero PA's in an LAA game and his numbers move away from target just a tad. Instead of averaging 3.9 PA's form here on out he is at 4.0, and his current PA's per team game average falls from 2.93893 to 2.91667. But that's such a small haircut he is still tracking to 'qualify' no later than September 8th. Pretty much every 5 PA game he has will move that target forward one game.............
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Everywhere In Baseball
With the devastation of Harvey still devastating Texas, MLB has moved the Astros/Rangers series to Florida. That would be the Florida that just got nicked by heavy flooding, from a weather situation that threatens the east coast......
And this move is pretty much because the Texas Rangers are assholes. Simple as that. Which explains their fans.......... But MLB has the Rangers' back. It's all because of how inconvenienced the Rangers and their fans might be. Waaah. If I were MLB Commissioner I would warn the Rangers that if they fail to make some accommodations in the aftermath of such devastation, next year they will get ZERO home games against the Astros...........
Giancarlo Stanton is already on the trading block. Yeah. THAT Giancarlo Stanton. But it's also the same Giancarlo Stanton owed $310 million more in his life. The new Marlins' regime of Derek Jeter and company can't afford that. Nobody else wants to be as stupid as the Marlins' previous regime. So the Marlins are going to have to send Stanton away WITH cash too. The only way that plays is if they can get back a haul of young, cheap, uber talent. We should watch this. It will help bring a teeny bit of focus to what any "trade Trout" fantasy would look like............
Stanton won't get to 74. Nope. Not this year. But that's not to say that if he would run this current HR rate over an entire season he couldn't do it..............
Finally. Aaron Judge gets a break. Literally. It's the unknown number of days non-DL plan...........
David Wright, who had played only 1 full season over his past 5, can now make that one out of his past 6. Wright singed a $138 million contract that started in his 2013 season, and he will have appeared in only 321 of his team's 662 subsequent games (including playoffs).............
Pitchers make for such shitty hitters, and are such a waste of offensive opportunity, that maybe MLB should make pitchers act as the DH for more and more of the position players until this whole pace-of-play problem gets resolved.............
Craig Gentry was such a piece of shit for LAA last year, that now that he is hitting like Ben Revere while with the Orioles, Gentry is considered to be "heating up"...........
Joey Votto had the craziest of days at the plate. 43 pitches, 5 BB's in 5 PA's. Zero official At-Bats. 0 for 0.
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The Duffle Bag
Aaron Judge on his way to set the Rookie record for all three true outcomes: HR, K and BB.........Unclear on the Concept Award Winner of the Day............And I thought the LAA offense was stinking things up. (Well, I was right.) The Kansas City Royals have now gone 43 straight innings without scoring a single run...........And that is how it's done. Dude has seats in a hot section, brings a glove and pays attention. Snags the line drive foul ball. Hands it to the kid.............Jered Weaver does not like to watch pitcher's duels..........But players tend to get bored in the dugouts, too............
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Jordan Serena Destiny Watch
No game, so lame. The IE 66ers open tonight in San Bernardino against the San Jose Giants.......
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