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As Mike trOUT goes, so goes the Halos. That’s a pretty good measure of his value as a baseball player. Over the last 11 games trOUT is batting .121, and across that same time the Angels are 3 and 8, averaging 2.6 runs per game. Not good for an AL team with a DH. There are only 2 regulars with a BA over .300 (Andrelton Simmons and Shohei Ohtani). The only way that the team can keep from plummeting down the AL West standings while the offense sleeps is to have crisp pitching. Garrett Richards was not crisp. Chris Young was even less crisp on defense.
The Blue Jays jammed Richards for 5 runs in the first frame (1 earned) and needed nothing else. Toronto wins 5-3 and the difference was the 2-run home run by none other than Kendrys Morales. Crap.
Endure some Will-This-Train-Wreck-Never-End-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Once more to remind, you have just watched the average Hall of Fame career, but compressed into the first few years of a kid still only 26 years old...........
The Angels are not using Shohei Ohtani enough..........The Angels are using Shohei Ohtani just perfectly............
Say what you will about Disneyfication of the Angels, but it cannot be denied that Michael Eisner was seriously vested.............
The LA Angels, your All Time AL West Champs..............
Everywhere In Baseball
The Orioles should be worrying more about winning a baseball game now and then. They are already down to 23rd place in attendance. So I would wonder if a Manny Machado really is the cure to all ills. It’s an interesting point from our POV. What if our entire system were in utter shambles during the last season of mike trOUT’s contract? How many people would regain their voice to shout for some blockbuster trade, at the very time when leverage was the lowest?..........
Whoops. Carlos Gomez is not convinced that MLB testing is at all random. I guess he might be feeling that an abnormal number of Dominicans are getting tested? Instead of Iowans, maybe...............Oh, and while we are here talking about it, Mark Teixeira (once a teammate of Robinson Cano) is not surprised AT ALL that Cano got busted............
Yeah, you know, because the Yankees are entitled to cherry pick the carcass of all the other teams in Baseball. So why shouldn’t Cole Hamels fall into their laps?............
If some people are getting so worked up about so many shifts, such as this guy, where the hell were they a hundred years ago before people figured out where they should position the defense most often in the first place?.............
MLB is working hard to plug into America’s youth. They are going direct with all their experimentation. I guess kids don’t already play Over The Line anymore?..........Hey MLB, you want to connect with future generations? Just get them into the stadium and let them be a kid.............
The Supreme Court opened up sports gambling in America. But it’s not the job of the Supreme Court to fix stupid............
Derek Jeter just cannot get out of his own way. How one person can find so many ways to destroy his own legacy so quickly just boggles the mind............
First Cano, now Cano’s replacement. Seattle is down to Plan F............
As the June Draft nears, here is a friendly dichotomy: On the one hand, Matthew Liberatore is as sure thing as a high school pitcher can be.....And on the other hand, Former top prospect Singleton released by Astros. (This guy was also once a sure-fire MLB star.)....So the third hand, 2014 MLB Draft in Review: Nola, not Aiken, prevails......Every year the experts rank the franchise drafts and then rank the franchise farm systems. But while some folks go back and look at individuals, nobody goes and looks back on those farm system rankings ears later to see which team really had the prospects that paid dividends...........
The Duffle Bag
No bullpen cart for me, dagnabit!...........Ok, this one is Big Time. Here is the job posting of the decade. CEO of SABR!...............One of these two guys had a 12-year semi-successful career as a pro athlete, and so did the other guy. Can you tell which is which?............What if Rich Hill buys some pine tar bandaids?................I wonder if, when this guy got kicked out of the stadium, he left his lady partner behind?...........Not every MLB player is just fine with striking out............Dr. Pepper, how could you?............