That went about as bad as I predicted, no? Verlander has been very good this year, historically strong against the Angels' best bats, and hot since moving over to Houston. Boom. The LAA announcing crew wanted to make a lot of hay about Verlander "struggling in Anaheim". Yeah, last night was only the 9th game here of his entire career. Worry more about the now, and not the small numbers of yesteryear, and you get the expected. Sure, you get a little help from the umpire, too, but he also got punished (seriously, look at those pitches called as balls against him in the meat of the zone).
But wasn't that refreshing there for a while, with Garrett Richards on the mound? It's been so long since we had a real ace performing in our rotation that I had forgotten what it felt like. It felt like why the hell can't we have nice things?!? Richards started out awesome. And he was making Houston batters look foolish. A cluster of single gave the Astros their lone run against him. Imagine what we could have done this season with more of that???
Angels limp to a loss 1-0. Pretty weak at this time of year.
Have some Asleep-At-The-Wheel Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
The Andrew Heaney injury status just keeps sliding away from our grasp, doesn't it? Initially it was Heaney saying he wasn't worried about anything. Then it was the Angels saying he wouldn't miss a rotation turn, but it might push to Saturday. Then an MRI saying no structural damage, but "impingement". Now it's Heaney will definitely miss a start. Seriously, these people need to just stop answering reporter's questions and keep it all to themselves. It's clear that either they don't know, or are not telling the whole truth. Neither one of those are a good look. Let us just imagine the worst and be happily surprised if it doesn't work out that way..........
We lost Mike Morin to the Royals on waivers. Did we just let him go?.............
Another review of Albert and Diedre Pujols and the good work they do to fight human trafficking..........
Josh Mayhood's Library of Mike Trout Hagiography
Mike doing unusual things, even for a Trout.............And also, do NOT underestimate Trout's 5th tool..........
Mike is in the national dialogue for AL MVP, but at this point he is more of a foil than he is a leader. As we have been following in the morning, his recent relative impotence, combined with a couple of dys with no games, and you wake up and look at the FG leaderboard and Trout has fallen all the way to 6th place in positional fWAR. It's kind of like he is not playing at all. And the recent W/L record of LAA show it, something that should reflect on the concept of "value"............
4 Plate Appearances puts Trout at 436 on the year, 3.02778 per LAA game average. He's barely hanging on to 3. At this rate he will be pushed out to mid-month to 'qualify'. He hasn't had a 6 PA appearance for more than a week, and only a single 5 PA game in that time.
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Everywhere In Baseball
Shohei Otani gave his workout in Japan. And 16 of the 29 teams not based in Anaheim were there to witness the exceptional showcase. Oh, and neither was the team based in Anaheim............
Welcome back Cameron. Just don't hurt us..........
2018 Schedules are out, and every team has something odd with which to contend. Our issue is nothing unusual for us. We play a bunch of games on a bunch of days with no break..........Perhaps the oddest would the Oakland A's, who are giving away a free home game. Of course, it's going to be against the White Sox. They might have to pay fans to attend even still..........
Part 2 of the long form on the life of scorekeeping. That would make it an extra-long form!.........
The Oakland A's say that they have finally figured out where to build a new stadium. That link is New York. 3 time zones away from California, where the location is already known. It takes a while for the NYT to get their Pony Express deliveries.........
Alert! Stephen Strasburg is chasing the all-time scoreless inning streak. Which means it will now end in the first inning of his very next outing...........
Things to watch in Arlington: the tail end of Mike Napoli's career. Seems clumsy..........
I don't know. I think freaking out about the Dodgers and Indians in September is the BEST time to freak out about them. Who would give a shit if this happened in June with so much baseball left to play?.........And 20 wins in a row is just plain crazy, regardless of when it happens...........
Deadspin, home of unionized bloggers in hot pursuit of crushing non-union competitors, is at it again. Basically, this week's installment is that Deadspin bests the traffic of SBNation the home page. But all of the SBN ecosysytems crushes Deadspin, and that extra traffic is coming from non-union funsters such as me and you. I'm all broke up............
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The Duffle Bag
Good catch on reddit. Those MLB stories written, but "not subject to MLB approval"? Bots..............Tim Mead wants us to remember that we now have a real Angels fan in the heavens..........Derek Jeter is NOT for sale............MLB and the MLBPA trying to figure out a pitch clock for pace-of-play. My guess is that it will happen in 2018, because even if the players don't sign up, Manfred is free to just do it. Because he wants it.........David Ortiz is hiring on with the Red Sox Front Office. And, no, it is not as Medical Director..........You rock on, Lonely Rays Fan..........Seven home runs across seven straight innings. Does that not seem like a distant galaxy for us, or what?..........Oh shit OUCH!!..........
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