:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60015853/973554764.jpg.1528677002.jpg)
We had Facebook Fwensday yesterday. Everything was going not worse than usual for 7 innings with the live streaming. Then the game action (for me , at least) started locking up hard. What did NOT lock up at all, though, were the stupid little emojis that FB users were clicking like mad and forcing to be floated up across the stale video feed. Nor did the comment chatter even think about slowing down to anything that might allow for reading of that content even if I cared.
That was OK, though, because it meant I did not have to watch Ryon Healy tie the game in the 8th with a solo home run off of Blake Parker. Nor did I have to watch Mitch Haniger hit a walk-off 2-run home run off of Oliver Drake in the 9th to gift a sweep of the series and hand the Angels an 8-6 come from behind, come-from-ahead 8-6 loss. As I type this, Jean Segura is still digging into the batter’s box with 1 out in the 9th and Drake having thrown only 1 pitch. It‘s 5:10PM and the game has been over for 30 minutes. Thanks, FB.
But, yeah. Our bullpen is terrible and Garrett Richards turned it into a bullpen game for us, and a certain person named Oliver Drake was who Mike Scioscia was using as our 9th-inning closer. On the same day that our offense found 6 runs to score. FML.
The Angels lost both Zack Cozart and Garrett Richards from the game early yesterday, both with non-life threatening issues but still an annoying development. Cozart might have had some kind of bumps or bruises from a play on defense, and Richards might have some sort of hammie problem. The Angels will made more formal announcements later yesterday, but who believes anything they say about injuries anymore? Credit to Jeff Fletcher of OCR, who noticed a disturbing trend with Richards BEFORE Garrett was lifted from the game.
Meanwhile, I did see something yesterday that might be a trend I had not noticed til now. In the 6th inning, with Mike Morin now pitching for Seattle (yeah, THAT Mike Morin) and Mike Trout at the plate, Morin started off pitching Trout straight up. But when he fell behind 3-1 the IBB was turned on. The approach there would be: ‘go ahead and see if Trout gets himself in trouble or we get lucky, but if those two things don’t happen just bail on the AB and send him to 1B before he kills us.’ So it’s not a full IBB. I nominate those to be known as the ”TIBB”. (And, oh yeah, Morin had had only 1 appearance this year, on the 9th, when he threw a total of 9 pitches. He closes out the 6th-inning threat by striking out Justin Upton on a 74mph change up.)
Player apologies are not unheard of. Some apologies are in order within this team, immediately.
Please endure these ongoing When-Will-Our-Team-Unpunk-Itself-Links:
A Little Bit Of Shohei Ohtani News
We are now less than one month away from the Ohtani bobblehead night. That tells me that LAA has about three weeks to complete the alterations of Ohtani as pitcher, now with a cast..........
A Little Bit Of Mike Trout News
I knew I was on to something yesterday when I bashed on how many homers are being hit in Safeco this series (Safeco being one of the most notoriously difficult home run ballparks in MLB). Mike Trout is the first player ever to have back-to-back multi-homer games in Safeco. And this includes every Mariners player, ever...........
Mike Trout with Bobblehead victory for 2018..........Trout approves..........
As the MSM continues to wake up to the idea that Trout is merely entering his prime years as a baseball player, the realization is settling in that Mike is actually playing at a level above and beyond mere MLB mortals..........And, yeah, it’s becoming a ‘thing’ that Trout is getting better. There is yet another one over at The Washington Post. Credit the MSM for paying more attention and pimping his greatness. Now, MLB, try and catch up, will you?..........
BBR points out that Trout is performing at historic levels for our own viewing pleasure. This is cool that BBR does this for me, since their Play Index tool will not work for me even though I am a paid subscriber..........BBR is also noticing that Trout 2018 is nearly twice as good as Trout 2017, which was an amazing enough Trout already..........And h/t to reddit. Mike Trout has more fWAR already this season.....than fully 1⁄3 of the team offenses throughout MLB (your mileage may vary depending on when you click those links)..........
A Little Bit Of Angels News
David Fletcher got off the bench! He tripled for this first MLB hit, driving in a pair of runs to get the Angels back into the game. (He would also single twice, going 3 for 4 in his debut.) He didn’t spend time being forced by Scioscia to warm a bench spot next to the skipper, after all. Nope. He got to play 3B, and was forced by Scioscia to bat 9th and watch the likes of Justin Upton and Albert Pujols and Nolan Fontana and Martin Maldonado and Luis Valbuena ahead of him do a whole lot of nothing with the efforts of Mike Trout...........
Kole Calhoun started his...er...umm...’rehab’ last night with SLC. He needs to shake off his funk and get back to Anaheim where he can erase this dubious record he is tracking on for 2018..........
Mike Scioscia is coming around on modern information analysis. But Sosh still needs to have somebody explain to him the proper intent of WAR..........
Who’s to blame? Is this the fault of the LAA medical staff, the LAA training staff, or the LAA scouting and drafting policies?..........
Griffin Canning continues to rip right through AA..........
19th-round draftee Daytren Bay chats with YouTube interviewer Tyler Boronski...........
Everywhere In Baseball
BETTS!.....BETTS!.....BETTS!..........
Fight!.....Fight!.....Fight!..........
Put a fork in him, because Miguel Cabrera as we knew him is probably gone forever. As a Halo fan it’s bittersweet. Cabrera is, by all accounts, a fairly good guy (the paternity thing might change that) and great teammate. I really wish we could have stuck the Marlins with Brandon Wood and gotten him. It’s not his fault that all of Detroit, and the Detroit ballplayers, and all of the old-school MSM went brain-dead stupid and gave Cabrera two of Trout’s MVP awards. He is most likely done. But I am still a little bitter, and I really wish I had a proper comeback for how Cabrera is now toast, and Trout is still glorious, even more so than those stolen MVP years...........
Yeah, I don’t get the Bryce Harper hate. He is one of the top 10 or 20 talents in MLB since he came up. But then I don‘t get the Mike Trout hate, either. Well, yes, I do get the Mike Trout hate. Jealously that he might win every award, every year. And hatred of WAR. And weather. people hate the weather..........
Let’s talk about players that fans love, instead. Fans in Washington LOVE Bryce Harper. (So the media wants to trade him.) Fans in Anaheim, not too unsurprisingly, love to talke about Shohei Ohtani even more than we do about Mike Trout. (Because, honestly, what is left to say. We just watch with our mouths agape.) But most hilarious of all is that the most popular NY Met is...minor-leaguer-not-a-Met Tim Tebow..........
Jeff Sullivan makes my entire month! You bet. I am tired of guys bending the rule about getting hit by pitch and umpires allowing them to get away with it..........
Torey Lovullo, Arizona Diamondbacks manager, doesn’t seem to mind his pitchers plunking opposing batters. It’s opposing pitchers retaliating against his own batters that the finds to be morally irresponsible..........
Ha ha ha ha ha.......Chris Sale, what a putz. Sale was gifted a pretty wide strike zone yesterday against the Orioles. But when the 7th inning came around, and with a 5-0 lead, he walked the first two guys and got pulled. On his way to the dugout he mouthed off to plate umpire Brian Knight and was ejected. After, Sale remained staunchly empowered. Yeah, sure Chris, for you being a little bitch about the umpire refusing to bail out your ass for how pitched to this guy...and then to this guy..........
Alex Reyes is on the DL, and from his perspective that battle is meaningless. Because his daughter is dealing with a much tougher battler: cancer..........
Here now comes the College World Series. As if it matters at all now that Cal State Fullerton was bounced..........
The Duffle Bag
(h/t UniWatch on TWO fun little items). Boston chick gets herself a sentimental tattoo, and the world immediately points out to her that she tattooed herself a Toronto Blue Jay fan. And then, in the ongoing series for most radically intersting one-off uniform jersey nights ever, we get The Grateful Dead (which might be a poignant nickname we pick up for ourselves as 2018 LAA fans).........On the other end of the spectrum, where we have the worst ideas, we will be getting The Raccoons..........OK. It’s viral. I’ll bite. Here is vintage Terry Collins..........In Ohio, we have a bobblehead tax dispute in the courts. I am not making this up..........In Baltimore, Chris Davis gets a hit = one free Dr, Pepper shooter at bartenders Pub. Think of all the ways that this could get played in Anaheim..........Japanese ceremonial first pitches might seem odd to us, but remember we Americans are the ones who do this..........Note to Chris Young: the minimum standard for being an MLB fielder is to be better than the ballboy..........Thank you - entire family - for your service..........
Rest In Peace, Ann Donovan............