TuesdoLinks: Can we get some Redbird Relief?

The Orioles, winners of only 4 out of their last 18 games, bringing their particularly atrocious brand of baseball to Anaheim. For the love of all that is holy, let this be the chance to cure what ails the LAA offense.

Have Some Get-Well-In-Time-For-Seattle-Links:

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A Little Bit of Angels News

Trout Porn: Mike is having one hell of a 2018 so far..........He trails Didi Gregorious in fWAR now, but he does lead in bWAR. If you pluck apart the bWAR numbers, you can see how that is. BBR is giving Mike a lot more credit for his defense!..........Because, yes, this is one place that Trout has decided to improve. And when Trout decides to do something on a baseball field, it happens and nothing shall stop him..........Trout WAR accumulation for 2018 has now seen him surpass a decent list of legends..........Here is a deeper look at some of the legends now in his rear view mirror..........And his HR rate is back to his 2015 level of 41 on the season..........

Shohei Ohtani will DH this week against Baltimore, but his next mound start is pushed back to - AT LEAST - the weekend series with Seattle. Robinson Cano is not afraid. (Cano is feeling good about the Mariners going on a run against the pitiful Rangers & the pitiful White Sox & an almost pitiful Cleveland team mired in a .500 W/L stretch)..........And this means that we might get to see an Ohtani versus Ichiro matchup after all.............While DH’ing, Ohtani will be more than happy for MLB pitchers to keep pounding him with inside fastballs..........

We had an off day yesterday, so I saved this revue of the construction of Angel Stadium for this low(er) news day. Enjoy the hell out of it!...........(A few notes to the newer members: my dad’s bank helped finance this stadium construction, which got me great season tickets for years, and I could watch the structure being raised from my own Little League field.)..........And, as a bonus, here is a photo from a game hosting the Yankees in their second season in Anaheim. Since it was the Yankees, who had their transplants in SoCal even back then, I would not have been in those field level season seats...........

SI’s Albert Pujols Hit Tracker is poised to explode this week..........

The Angels are regressing to a mean of their own..........

Angels Stadium security knows how to push back against the onslaught of MFY takeover attendees..........

We need to get a HH’er wearing a Panther t-shirt to throw out a first pitch!!...........

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Everywhere In Baseball

I should have grown up to be some kind of baseball analyst genius instead of a random I.T. guy/blogger. I have been telling this FiveThirtyEight story for months now, about how having so many concurrent tanking teams is not gonna pay off the way it did for the Cubs and Astros..............And the tanking epidemic is just that, an epidemic of epic proportions............

Losing makes everybody look bad. Something that apparently comes easier when you are a Dodger. LAD skipper Dave Roberts didn’t like the way that Cody Bellinger failed to attempt a triple, so he pulled him for lack of hustle.....Bellinger is barking back at the presumptuousness of his manager. And the vultures outside are ready to start picking at the bones of the LAD 2018 season aspirations...........

What if every team made the playoffs? Well, then we would be hockey..........

What if Major League Baseball lost its unique anti-trust exemption? Well, then we would have a while lot of lawyers suddenly out of work..........

Matt Harvey has had a tough career. With tough choices. He might have avoided some of those had he chose to take Arte’s tough choice first, though..........

It’s good to live your baseball life as a Yankee. MLB rides along on your works days with a finger on the scales in your favor. This becomes such a thing that when it stops happening some random MFY player can go all shit-storm on everyone. Take, for example, C.C. Sabathia. It turns out that Sabathia was all upset at plate umpire Angel Fernandez during a 3rd-inning Justin Upton at-bat that resulted in a groundout. So upset that it was noticeable enough to Hernandez, who walked over to Sabathia on C.C.’s way to the dugout in order to chastise him for challenging balls and strikes. Sabathia went ballistic. As in, how dare Fernandez force Sabathia to actually throw a pitch over the plate? And such audacity required Sabathia to throw one more pitch! Of all the gall!!! The pitch in question? #4 below.

Now, let’s break for a moment and look at some other moments in the same game:

What you are admiring there would be the stretched zone that Fernandez was calling yesterday, where Sabathia enjoyed a free strike (There were similar calls in Skaggs’ favor inside and high, as well).

Derek Who?..........

On the whole, Baseball seems full of guy who do not strike me as the type who could even spell neuroscience, must less put it into practice. Most of these guys are still quite vocally antagonistic towards advanced analytics............

A great long form on the famed photo of the even more famous Bill Mazeroski Game 7 home run to crush the Yankees in the 1960 World Series..........

Revenge is a dish best served up on the final scoreboard. I had a very similar experience to this Little League racial episode here in OC back when I was a youth soccer coach and took my Santa Ana team deep into an upper middle class neighborhood. And my kids, too, kicked their ass. The difference in my case was the locals getting so frustrated at the whupping their kids were taking that they actually called the local police on us. I am not joking...........

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The Duffle Bag

The “K” era has finally taken full control of our National Pastime..............Danny Espinosa asked to be released from Toronto’s AAA team. His wish was granted. This guy has been getting the worst career advice I have ever known.........(h/t Shane Victorino): Because baseball is supposed to be FUN, PEOPLE!!!..........I hate it when old white guys keep making old white guys like me look like assholes..........

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