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For the second game in a row, the Angels rolled out an offense without a Mike Trout, but with a 2017 Albert Pujols. And for the second straight game this was still better than what the Oakland A's could do against LAA pitching.
The difference last night were C.J. Cron and Ben Revere, with a sprinkling of Martin Maldonado thrown in to boot. Cron gave us a pair of homers and 4 RBI's. Revere was 2 for 4 with 2 more RBI's. And Maldo hit a shot that nearly reached orbit. Pujols added to the sour taste of now playing in 25 games this season and only driving in any runs in 6 of them, with 7 blanks in a row now.
Angels win 8-2. They are now 12 back in the AL West, and 1 game out of a WC spot.
Do the Cronicles-of-Victory Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
You might have not noticed, but the reason that Mike Trout went hitless again last night was because he was again not in the lineup. He hopes to play today...........
The Arizona Fall League will kickoff mid-October, and 6 Halos will be participating. That should make the AFL worth following, for sure..........
Billy Eppler wins the waiver wire this year...........
Andrew Bailey is done for 2017. This is a pisser, and I feel real bad for young Mr. Bailey, but who around here is surprised? This is The Year of Snakebit Halo Pitchers..........How do I know this? Hell, even Bud Norris is now off to the DL..........
Jesse Chavez has turned into a K-Monster...........
Martin Maldonado hit the longest home run in Angel Stadium since Mark Trumbo in 2013...........It should also end up being a Top 30 HR distance in 2017..........
Josh Mayhood's Library of Mike Trout Hagiography
Trout is a giver. He takes the lead for his fellow MLB players by committing publicly to donating to the Houston cause. $27K for #27. As I mentioned yesterday in the Links comments, feel sorry for Aaron Judge, playing on a rookie's salary and wearing #99........By the way, just read the comments here and see how baseball fans, as individuals, all over the place just love the shit out of Trout...........
Missing his second straight game, Mike is back to where he was on August 21st in his chase for the qualifying rating. Stuck at 385 PA's, he is only averaging 2.89474 PA's per LAA game and would need to average 4.03448 PA's per game from here on out. No big deal, but it might push out his showing up on the stats boards until mid/late next week. Of course, with his slump, when he shows back up it might not be as spectacular...........
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Everywhere In Baseball
The first game of that relocated series between the Astros and Rangers was played last night at Tropicana Field. Texas creamed Houston, 12-2. Attendance 3,485 people. The Astros, as home team, get to keep the net revenue, right?.......By the way, somebody within MLB got a little miffed over an MLB.com article on the move to the Trop, and went to lengths to give the article a silent scrubbing...........
This went from sad, to sadder. Danny Duffy was arrested for DUI the other night. Duffy, a Royals starting pitcher, has been on the Disabled List and clearly not following a game-to-game regimen. DUi is bad enough (more so from our LAA POV, something a local KC news outlet seems to miss), but passing out in a Burger King drive-thru??? The dude has zero sense of responsibility, zero brains, and zero taste in burgers..........
Ah shit. Now Hardball Times goes to bat for the Dark Side, giving us a case for eliminating the DH.............
These are the kinds of problems I wish WE had. The Red Sox have scored 77 more runs than the Angels, and have won 7 more games. They have the 8th-best BA in all of Baseball. So why worry about their offense?.............
Hats off to Chris Sale for becoming the fastest pitcher to 1500 K's. But he does benefit from starring in an era when batters don't give a shit about striking out. Just look at how the strikeout rates have zoomed over the recent years...........
Remember last year when it was clear that the Rangers were not really as good as their record, but merely the luckiest bastards in Baseball? We knew that luck would run out. It did. And when it did, it ran out so hard that it has hidden the reality that the Rangers actually got a little bit better.............
Giancarlo Stanton just hit his 18th home run of August. Big number there, people.....Hall of Fame kind of numbers are going on.......It's no wonder why a premier team as far down as the Giants would drool for Stanton.....But if Stanton were to move to the NL West, wouldn't it be even more fun if it were the Rockies???............
The new 10-day DL rule is something that was predicted to be exploited by smart teams. The smartest of them appears to be the Dodgers..............
Long form alert: Youth sports is becoming so lucrative that it is slowly being privatized...........
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The Duffle Bag
Screw Matt Joyce........"I'm happy for your home run ball, dad, but now can I have my bottle?"..........By the way, the Kansas City Royals scored in the 3rd inning last night, stopping their streak of infamy............And, yeah, that was a screw up. They could have made some fun history and blew it...........Rougned Odor sucks so bad he is actually worse than Albert Pujols...........This Kevin Pillar dude just keeps filing one super defensive gem after another. I think he might be pretty good.............
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Jordan Serena Destiny Watch
The IE 66ers defeated the San Jose Giants 6-5 last night. Serena did not start. But he DID get a late appearance as an defensive substitute, for none other than Yunel Escobar as 3B in the 6th inning. This gave Serena one AB, in the 7th, where he grounded out to SS...........
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