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Tyler Skaggs burned through a hell of a lot of pitches to grind out 6 scoreless innings and shut down the Rangers on a warm, breezy afternoon in Anaheim. Luis Valbuena stroked a lazy double down the right field line to drive in Shohei Ohtani and Zack Cozart. And Justin Upton launched a large HR well over the line into the pavilion seats. Halo pitchers combined for 10 K’s. And that was just Sunday.
Garrett Richards went 7 innings on Saturday, struck out 9 himself, and gave up only 1 run in a no-decision. LAA pitchers K’d 13 overall. Jaime Barria dropped by on Friday in between flights to and from SLC to go 6 innings of 4-hit ball and K’d 6 batters himself (THE Oliver Drake added another K in the 9th). In total, 30 strikeouts and 0 earned runs across 19 innings of work by the 3 LAA starters made for an excellent run and a home series win. In fact, we haven’t seen a weekend like this since 1962. Seriously. (In fact, the entire starting staff has been brilliant for a month now. Better than Houston, even.)
But due to time constraints we rejoin our game after 8 innings, with the Angels winning 3 to 1.
Justin Anderson came running in from the bullpen at the top of the 9th to close the game out, and spent the next 45 minutes battling his own demons, exacerbated by a wildly out of control strike zone. (I count 5 missed pitches out of the 34 he threw. He had Joey Gallo KO’d cold. That should have ended the game instead of putting a second guy on base. He had Shin-Soo Choo KO’d cold. That should also have ended the game instead of putting a third guy on base, loading them up. Fortunately Isiah Kiner-Falefa was too impatient to allow plate umpire Chris Conroy the time to do his magic. Conroy flies out to Hermosillo and the game ends 3-1, removing the Odor from our ballpark. Justin Anderson saved.
Wait. What? Michael Hermosillo? Oh yeah. Kole Calhoun has suffered a heretofore un-mentioned ‘groin injury’ and is off to the DL. This means that Hermosillo is up, and played a pair of games over the weekend. He can be forgiven for going hitless against a Cole Hamels. Going hitless against a Doug Fister is merely emulating our idol, Mike Trout.
The biggest news coming out of Angel Stadium this weekend is that MLB is drifting into NFL country with their “what is a slide” problem. We had an absurd set of examples in Anaheim which the umpires got wrong both times. The Odor slide was all Anthony Rizzo, except at 2B and not at home (I’m not the only one who noticed). Nor did it involve a marquee team such as the Cubs. Close attention to detail will note that MLB is failed to render any comment about the Odor slide, as they did with the Rizzo slide within hours. But Rangers manager Jeff Bannister was pretty quick to be a little bitch. Bannister must have still been in diapers during the Buck Showalter/Vicente Padilla days.
We got some Pre-Draft-Royals-Links:
A Little Bit Of Shohei Ohtani News
Stuff...........
A Little Bit Of Mike Trout News
Trout went hitless yesterday in only 3 Plate Appearances. In fact, he did not get the ball out o the infield. But he did do this. Running 103 feet to haul in a fly ball with only a 19% chance of being caught not only helps save the game, but it helps save his WAR progress...........We all cringed a Mookie Betts cringe when Trout limped away from that wall, but he will be fine, right?..............
Mike had himself a nice bWAR jump, passing Yogie Berra, Vlad Guerrero and Ichiro Suzuki for career bWAR. Mike Piazza, Bobby Abreu and then Harmon Killebrew are coming up next, while Ichiro throws batting practice............
A Little Bit Of Angels News
We had Zack Cozart back in the lineup yesterday. To be honest, this had me momentarily confused. With him out a few games with arm strain, I had already lost track and my first thought upon hearing his name was “How did I miss a callup from SLC for Kaleb Cowart?” (I had yet to hear that he had come up with Hermosillo.) But then Cozart singled, and my brain snapped back to current time and place............
Jaime Barria getting some media notice.............
Hall Of Famer to Hall Of Famer. Nice Mr. 3000 moment............
Cute factoid about LAA rookie pitchers...........Can Griffin Canning pitch out of the ‘pen?...........
Everywhere In Baseball
It’s MLB June Draft Day #1. MLB Draft Central is here. Round 1 is not going to begin until around 4PM PDT this afternoon...........Angels have pick #17............As Trout remembers, it’s a pretty cool moment to have your named called..............Here is how to follow all the important story lines............And might the next #1 pick ALSO be from California? It wouldn’t be all that unusual..........Remember, the draft is important. This is where the money is going...........Who should we pick? Who should we pick, indeed?..........
Jake Arrieta knows how to put his foot down on all that page turning when an offense tanks...........Give him credit for knowing how to put his bat where his mouth is, Arrieta is the guy who single-handedly outscored his entire active roster............And kayak dude is the guy who single-handedly remained alert of any remote possibility that Arrieta could hit a baseball that far...........
Max Scherzer also had himself an excellent day at the plate. Pinch-hitter?..........
Cal State Fullerton going strong!............Walk off against overall #2 Stanford!!...........
Losing a no-hitter in the 7th is becoming commonplace. Losing a no-hitter in the 9th inning, though, that shall always hurt..........
Rookie Of The Year one year, minor league option consideration just 8 months later...........(By the way, we can stop the LAD jokes. The Dodgers are 13 and 4 over their last 17 games, and are now 2.5 games out of 1st place in the NL West.)............
Start boning up on sports gambling. Because it will overwhelm us all. Start with the insider stuff...........
Unhealthiness Times: Dustin Pedroia can’t get himself back onto the field.......Brandon Belt is to be down 3 weeks recovering from his appendectomy.......Jeremy Hellickson lasted all of 4 pitches before ripping a hammie........Mookie Betts is officially on the 10-day DL.......Madison Bumgarner will be back tomorrow.........Daniel Murphy, though, not so soon......
Thank you, Jerry Dipoto..........
The Duffle Bag
The Yankees are really hard on airplanes. And they aren’t do very well controlling the weather, either.........I love how smart baseball makes fools of stupid baseball...........This is Avengers Baseball! That guy now needs his own bobblehead............Next to the male stripper to come later, this is the most action this bachelorette party will see all day.............The Mets are a dumpster fire even with their giveaways..........And even the NYC taxi drivers know know better than to waste time trying to get to Citi Field and snag one of them tees...........But maybe that cabbie knows something. Maybe even the Mets can’t stand watching themselves play in Citi Field...........Atlanta Braves social media maven is clever, but needs a new gag.............That’s the way you play it. Catch the foul ball, and celebrate by drinking your beer, not spilling it...........