WeekEnd HaloLinks: Road Kill(ed)

That was a tough road trip. 3 and 7 with some sad, sad losses. And some tough losses against a hot team. And some pasting from a very good team. But last night was interesting. Only 1 run scored but it felt to me like there was some fight in the roster. They put guys on base, and they moved them around. They just couldn’t get that finishing hit. It wasn’t until the 5th inning that they went down in order. Meanwhile, Jaime Barria was doing a good job keep the Mariners off the board. He allowed only 2 runs until he was replaced in the 6th with 2 runners on (neither scored). A tight game of 2-1 until the bottom of the 7th. But, bullpen.

Trout had a pretty tough night with plate umpire Mark Ripperger. You never got those at-bats back. You never get back that moment in the 1st inning with you are most lethal batter of your generation, two men are on base already with nobody out, starting pitcher Marco Gonzalez is already buckling at the knees, and you have that pitcher falling behind at 3 balls and 2 strikes. In fact, you didn’t get to have that moment, because Ripperger had no command over the outside and bottom parts of the strike zone (Truly, that bad job went both ways. See here and here and here and here. Instead, Trout gets rung up while being better at seeing the ball than the ump, and even though the bases will load up for Albert ‘GIDP Champ Of All Time’ Pujols, Pujols will do that Pujols thing and join with Ripperger, GIDP’ing the Halos right out of a blowout. (Things would not get much better for Trout later on, and Mike got as pissed off as we have seen him.)

That 1st inning had the chance to open up big. Maybe even big enough to survive Cam Bedrosian in the later innings. Maybe, maybe not. As it was, the Angels lost 4-1. That was the outcome that counts. and we will never know what might have been.

It’s a weekend. As if Wednesday didn’t already feel like a Saturday. But have some For-Reals-This-Is-A-Full-Weekend-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Shohei Ohtani News

Happy to be back, happy to be swinging the bat well, not so happy that he knows how to face off against left-handed pitching. That’s our Shohei Ohtani .............

Shohei turned 24, and that is already cause to celebrate all that he has done.............

A Little Bit Of Mike Trout News

Mike Trout and Mookie Betts have two opposite approaches to 2-strike at-bats. Betts avoids them like the plague. Trout eats them for breakfast. Both approaches, weirdly, result in near-perfect ballplayers..............

A Little Bit Of Angels News

Ah, what almost was............

Nick Tropeano is starting to work his way back...........

Garrett Richards, trade bait. Which means that he will go someplace else, pitch until he’s 42, never appear in fewer than 35 games per season for the rest of his career, which will look a lot like that of Cliff Lee............

Justin Anderson has given us just over 30 innings of action so far this season. And that is already cause for some concern. Mostly because, in Justin Innings, that works out to closer to 70 innings for a normal reliever. That is because Anderson averages almost 20 pitches per inning. And, as a rookie, everything is unexplored territory...........

More paywall porn, but watch out for the guy we had been laughing at: Taylor Ward, our new slugging 3B. I’m not throwing any more shade at Ward. Not if he really is a potential 3B slugger. I have been whining for one of those for a dozen years now...........

Yeah, we had more guys going down to SLC and other guys coming up from SLC. Nothing to get excited over, either way...........

Everywhere In Baseball

Rahul Setty. FanGraphs Ace, Chapter 2. Rahul is writing about J.T. Realmuto when I am still trying to prove that Realmuto is J.T.’s real name..............

Max Scherzer demonstrates how to light fires under the asses of guys cruising through a season waiting for the game to come to them..............That was Wednesday. Not saying that there is a direct correlation, but yesterday the Nats then did this. Of course, maybe it was just the Marlins..........

The Angels can’t relief pitch. The Angels can’t score with any consistency. The Angels can’t keep off the DL. But the Angels can sure play D. 4th best in MLB. On the other end of the spectrum would be the Orioles. So if a team is playing the Orioles, and the Orioles are so bad with balls put into play, why wouldn’t a batting order simply use the strategy of putting balls into play?...........

If we are undergoing a revolution in bullpen usage overall, why would the demise of the LOOGY come as any surprise?...........

On the same day that draftee Brice Turang announced that he would be signing with the Brewers rather than play for LSU, Dodgers’ draftee J.T. Ginn announced that he was choosing Mississippi State over Chavez Ravine. Ginn was the LAD’s 1st round pick...........

Yesterday we had a lot of Bark in the Park. Lots of good dogs had a great day. The Nats, knowing half the country is wrong and really dig cats, are wasting a day for the other side. Just don’t bring those fur balls to the stadium..........

What? Now we are going to have a Home Run Derby of the National League versus the American League vs. the Retiree League?............

How does a player no-show to a charity event put together to benefit his own charity? Is that just a Red Sox thing?............

Writer Phil Mushnick is scouting out a nice place n the porch for his retiree rocking chair, where he will have a good view of the lawn to ward of those pesky neighborhood kids. But he does make a few solid points about honesty in sports.............

When all men wince, and all women giggle and snicker at all men wincing. I cannot even type the title............

This ain’t baseball, but it’s an enlightened approach for how a sports entity can engage with the fanbase in the modern world............

The Duffle Bag

Uh, no, Cubs. These ain’t Hawaiian shirts. These are button up PJ’s.............No protective netting for the broadcast booth?. What the hell? They got extended netting now even in Lego ballparks...........104 years old and throwing out a 1st pitch? I’ll be happy to be 104 and still able to inhale!.............I don’t know what is more stupid. People in San Francisco being so economically delusional that they are willing to charge and pay $19.25 for a Sierra Nevada? Or the Giants not knowing how to spell “Petaluma”...........I want to see James Shields blow this bubble when he steps up to the plate in an interleague game!...........