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11 strikeouts over 6.1 innings. 11 out of the 19 outs were mow jobs. Shohei Ohtani is rocking the LAA record books for rookie pitchers. I cannot wait for next Sunday! Oh wait. Yes I can. I’m a Halo fan. That means I get to see Ohtani slugging from the plate in between. Because Ohtani is full-assed dope. Hell yeah! Take your time, Sunday. Take your time.
Angels win 2-1 on a Zack Cozart walk-off as Ohtani now has 43 total K’s in his first 6 starts.
Have some Sitting Pretty-In-Pink-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
It’s all Ohtani Porn: Logan Morrison of the Twins got a first-person look at Ohtani through that 4-game series and came away impressed. Impressed as in “...probably the best player in the world.”...........Keep in mind that the Angels have said all along that while there are certain things that will not happen with Ohtani this season, they were going to remain flexible with him. So, yeah, we might see Scioscia open up and have Shohei pitch and hit in the same game............
In case you do not follow these things, Mike Trout does not play a 162-game schedule. He gets a day off every now and then. Yesterday was one of those days. Trout, though, is a good kid and loves his mom. On Mother’s Day, however, his career slash line is .350/.480/.550 with an OPS of 1.030. Maybe he should have been given Saturday off..........
By the way, Ian Kinsler with the brilliant relay, and Mike Trout with the assist..........Trout with yet another Spiderman slide. (He’s wearing his hand guard, though, so head first slides are cool again.).........Mike does amazing things even when he flies out..........
Keynan Middleton back out with elbow pain. To the MRI machine for him. Notice, though, that it’s not Middleton who is complaining. It’s Maldonado who is coming to his rescue.........
Mike Scioscia reminding us to enjoy Andrelton Simmons..........
I wish this were true. But Garrett Richards is not enough to put the LAA starting rotation back to full health and track towards October. Thankfully, we don’t have to depend on Richards alone. Ohtani is doing very well, and there is that Barria kid who may solved that #5 spot.........Really, the key to 2018 looks a lot like it will be all about the bullpen..........
Did you know that Addison Reed, Twins reliever, used to be a batboy for the Angels?..........And Torii Hunter is still a fan...........
Everywhere In Baseball
I have to put this up top just to remind. This could not happen in any other sport. Baseball players are the greatest. Steven Souza proves it..........
We have a CleatGate, everyone. MLB uniform popos had the audacity to desire that uniforms be, you know, uniform......That ideal crashed into Ben Zobrist, who simply wanted to wear black cleats.....Not start wearing black cleats, mind you. Continue as he has been for a couple of years.....They also got on the case of Mike Clevinger......All kinds of players reactions percolated up......Fans came to the defense of players...........MLB execs didn’t like the bad PR, so they called their uni-popo patrol peeps and told them to STFU............
Let’s take a moment to observe how the Dodgers are plummeting out of control. They just got swept. In a FOUR game series. At home. By the Cincinnati Reds. The same Reds who would be the losing-est team in Baseball if it were not for the Dodgers. This puts the LADs exactly 1 game out of the cellar in the NL West......And in the middle of this muck, young starlet Cody Bellinger is still out there inventing his own coaching decisions..........(The Reds add insult to injury by demonstrating to young Cody when to actually bunt, and how.)..........
Those last place Padres are seeing that they cannot afford that infield after all. Chase Headley is DFA’d......(Eric Hosmer is all the way up to a solid 1.0 bWAR, which is less than 1⁄3 a Mike Trout at 2⁄3 the payroll cost. For which Headley’s head must roll.).........
The Braves were supposed to still be emerging form their tank cycle. They were not supposed to have the best record in the NL...........And Sean Newcomb is officially paying dividends for them, in spades..........
Freddie Peralta, rookie pitcher for the Brewers, K’d 13 batters in his debut and everybody goes gaga. I have a question for those everybodys: what’s Peralta’s SLG percentage?...........
Bruce Maxwell continues to learn that doing dickhead things can lead to consequences. It can also lead to consequences imposed on your employer..........
Grant Brisbee coming over to the dark side, where the idea of rich dudes holding taxpayer’s hostage might be thought of as a bad idea...........
Geez but FanGraphs takes the long way around - and buries us in charts and data - jut to tell us what is commonly understood: you don’t start to think no-hitter until you get tot he 7th inning. Now, if you are too young to know that, this is why you hang around here with an old fart such as myself.........
Sports Illustrated is so excited! They get to have the Yankees and Red Sox in the center of their universe again, and then there is everything else............Just in time, too. SI was busy resurrecting the Red Sox and Yankees of old and were on the verge of being forced to showcase “the good old days”..........
Really? We are in freakout mode about strikeouts and ho-hitters and it’s only May? How about taking a deep breath. Or thinking about lowering the mound again. Easy shit, you know?...........(I do NOT recall this kind of freak out when PEDs made the balance of power so dominant on the hitters’ side)...........
It was a bad flurry of injuries throughout Baseball. Adrian Beltre is back to the DL again with his hampered hammie.......Rich Hill, another freshly back from the DL, blistered up one of his pitching fingers an had to exit his start......Robinson Cano was HBP and broke his hand. Surgery. More DL time......Adam Wainwright? Off the DL, crappy outing. Back to the DL......Jacob deGrom finally got back from the DL, but then had to endure a 45-pitch first inning back and the coaching staff decided that was enough, and pulled him before he got the chance to hurt himself again......deGrom was not consulted in this act.....Oh, and Jason Heyward is not coming back any time soon. Not that anyone noticed him missing..........
The Duffle Bag
Bryce Harper smacked a huge home run. The funny part is that it was such a no-doubter that nobody on defense even flinched............Does anybody know how expensive it is , per hour, to run a helicopter? I like softball, too, but...........Once again Dan Shaughnessy proves to be the biggest idiot in the nation blessed with a keyboard.............Houston Astros with the Ultra-Uber-Shift!............NBC wanted to do an all-sports thing for Mother’s Day. NBC picked the wrong sport to ‘all-sports’...........Welcome - FINALLY! - to the show, Brandon Mann..........No. The San Antonio Missions are NOT an affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks..........You gotta learn how to dress yourself, Francisco Lindor..........For the record, I am a HUGE Superbad fan. So this is awesome...........Vote yourself into the All-Star Game...........