TuesdoLinks: Padres answer Angels prayers

When a Wil Myers is a vacuum a the hot corner, you know that Lady Luck has abandoned you for every hand you shall be dealt. Prior to last night, Myers had only played 1 inning at 3B in his entire MLB career, and never had to make a single play. That was the 9th inning of a 4-3 loss to the Mets, back on May 8th of 2016. But last night he was sucking up all that the Halos tried to sneak through his side. All three Halo batters in the 1st inning were taken down by Myers. 5 of the first 6. Myers made 9 plays in his 9 innings of work over there.

And that was the problem. As soon as Myers was pulled from playing 3B defense, the LAA offense exploded. 4 runs in the 10th inning. Not having Myers at 3B is why Jose Briceno doubled to LF, and why Kole Calhoun hit a ground rule double, and why Justin Upton (who knows a thing or two about playing in Petco) hit a solo homer. It is. It really is. Angels win 6-3.

With the Halos and Padres, have some Heaven-Does-Wait-In-Southern-California-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Shohei Ohtani News

Shohei did another bullpen session yesterday. 33 pitches but his full repertoire and not full speed. But think about how cool this is. Ohtani did a BP session early Saturday, then DH’ed Saturday night and went 1 for 4. He DH’ed again the next afternoon and went 1 for 5 with a pair of RBI’s. Then he did another BO spot on Monday, and came in as a pinch-hitter in extras Monday night, drawing a walk and ended up scoring the winning run on David Fletcher’s suicide squeeze. It’s pretty fun to think about running him out to the mound or out to swing a productive bat and neither are an anomaly.............

A Little Bit Of Mike Trout News

As Mike approaches the mystery date for when he will get out of DH probation, he has taken time away from the team. Personal reasons. Meaning, none of your bees wax............

I’m pretty cool with the realization that Mike is not going to be having a Trout season in 2018. The question, really, is how far down the 2018 MVP voting he falls? 2nd? 3rd? He has had his stretches of brilliance, but he also had July. And he had a couple of weak stretches in May and June. And he keeps taking himself off the field with his slides. He’s only played 1 game so far in August, and when he gets back we will be in the back half of the month. Meanwhile, other guys are making the stellar defensive plays.....other guys are hitting for the cycle.....other guys are having the monster weeks.....and other youngsters are putting up the inhuman performances...........

A Little Bit Of Angels News

From 1st-round catcher bust, to 1st-round potential 3B slugging savior. Here comes Taylor Ward. Mike Scioscia celebrated by playing Jefry “0 for 3” Marte at 3B............

We are gonna keep goofin’ with the Bees (this is my pull). The Angels extended the contract with Salt Lake City to keep up the development relationship as our AAA affiliate..........

Did you notice that Osmer Morales was in San Diego last night, and not Eduardo Paredes?...........

Everywhere In Baseball

Good news, maybe? Kenley Jensen expects to be back on the mound before the season is out, and will undergo heart surgery in the offseason. I looked it up, and the procedure sounds pretty weird..........

Leonys Martin is battling a bacterial infection of his own, something that hit hard at multiple organs. He is expected to be OK...........

Manny Machado ain’t doing so great since being traded to the Dodgers. .264/.343/.407 with an OPS of .750 and only 2 home runs in 23 games as I type this. But no, Machado says this is all just groovy.............

Is it some kind of modern rule that no lengthy article about the Oakland A’s cannot be written unless it includes the phrase ‘market inefficiency’? This year, the market inefficiency is...winning games. Yeesh............

Oh, the poor Astros. Suffering from a few boo boos and now they are “injury riddled”. Anything to explain away their failure to run away with the American League once again...........

Vlad Guerrero, Jr. has now homered in 4 straight games. The Blue Jays ain’t going anywhere, but they aren’t going to be bringing up Baby Vlad for some MLB seasoning, something that was common years ago. So Toronto is now sitting in the dunk tank for us to take our shots at the CBA. Anybody who watched the Kris Bryant story knows why this happening. The MLBPA had a chance to do something about this just a few months ago, but they chose to ignore MiLB players who are NOT union members and, instead, focus on creature comforts for MLB players who ARE union members............

Jeff Passan takes up the pitchfork to march on anybody who defaults to suspecting a Dominican player for pulling any of the Dominican shenanigans...........

“Jump the shark” has now jumped the shark. We now know that something has gone past being novel and interesting not because of a stale Happy Days reference, but because Mike Scioscia does it..........

It looks as if everybody wants the chance to be Victor and Gubi’s boss.............

The Duffle Bag

Noah Syndergaard digs his LLWS..............And the LLWS has seen it’s share of great pro athletes...........Uh oh. Michael Wilbon is off the reservation, calling out his own EastSPiN producers for not paying attention beyond the right coast...........Well THAT was embarrassing...........Perry Hill has a head of lettuce. Literally..........