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Baseball is an odd game. Think of what has happened in Baltimore. Sometimes it just makes no sense.
Getting your ass kicked by Tampa Bay makes no sense. The Angels have now been outscored 17 to 8 by a team without a starting pitcher. They have been embarrassed by a franchise that has infamously slashed payroll by trading away or cutting loose their very best talent - Evan Longoria, Steven Souza, Jake Odorizzi, Corey Dickerson, Chris Archer, Nick Solak, Anthony Banda. They threw up the white flag months ago. They want to lose. And yet...
Right this minute the TB Rays record is 55 and 53. And the Angels record is 54 and 55. The Rays have their record in spite of 32 games against the Astros, Yankees and Red Sox. We have our record after only 21 games against those same teams. The Rays are not any doormat compared to the Angels. We got our excuses. They got their reasons. But we are not head and shoulders better than Tampa Bay. It’s not a major upset to be getting clocked by these guys. We need to own it.
And clocked we got. Again. 7 to 2.
We need to start having some individual performance breakouts. It’s pretty much all that we have to look forward to. So let’s get us some of that.
Have these There-Are-Still-Fun-Times-Ahead-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Shohei Ohtani News
Some steely-eyed journalists are starting to notice that Shohei isn’t hitting MLB left-handed pitching so well............
A Little Bit Of Mike Trout News
Mike has been struggling this month, but he is still having one of his better seasons...........And in one corner-case metric Trout keeps pushing forward a record that nobody has ever done before...........
Wanna be the Official Bat Kid for Trout’s 27th birthday? Gotta be between the ages of 5 and 12 (or the parent of one such rug rat).............
Help raise money to cure Huntington.s Disease, and win the chance to meet and greet Allie La Force. Mike Trout might also be in the neighborhood............
Speaking of being a good guy, here is an unheralded moment that shows Mike’s character..............
Nobody seems to be paying enough attention to the perspective in all of this. The MVP race in the AL is a pretty good one this year. But that’s this year. Every year we get a new campaign about some guy who is having their banner season and rising up to the level of the same Mike Trout who keeps having the same amazing season year over year. When Trout got started it was Miguel Cabrera in his peak years, which are now gone. Then it was Josh Donaldson having a brief peak, and now gone. Then Jose Altuve. Now Mookie Betts and an amazing Jose Ramirez. They are legit. Will they sustain it? We know Trout, and we know he will. Will we still be having this discussion but with Baby Vladdie in 2021?...........
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Yes, Albert, the Halos HAVE been in this shitty spot before. More than once. Can’t say as I recall it working out............
Congratulations, Kole. Starting RF for MLB Team Of The Month for July...........And he is now a solid fantasy pick for America............
Jo Adell is coming..........And Kevin Maitan is showing up on radars.............
Luis Valbuena took a rough month, and distilled it into one rough game. You will notice that he agrees with this assessment. It’s not just some random fan overreaction..........
Everywhere In Baseball
This is every year, but I don’t recall Trade Deadline Winners and Losers articles being such a huge MSM party as it is this year. Maybe it’s a byproduct of this year’s unusual frenzy..... One...Two...Three...Four...Five...Six...Seven...Eight...Nine...Ten...Eleven...they just keep on coming. How about one full article just on the Losers, and one other full article just on the Winners? Or how about (instead of simply naming winners and losers) some sideline advice for what the teams did things right or wrong at the deadline?............
The Astros are deep in it now. Going out and fetching Roberto Osuna comes with a whole lot of issues these days. The manager is kind of wrapped around his axle on how to sort it all out.....Jose Altuve doesn’t know what to think or say......And non-MLB judicial resolution - any any resulting consequences, if any - are a ways off still.
The Nationals have their own method for generating drama. After sending Brandon Kintzler to the DBacks, with subsequent word coming out that the move was driven due to the suspicion that Kintzler is a clubhouse snitch, the Nats outright fired Shawn Kelley. The reason? Kelley threw a temper tantrum on the mound. All the official statements point to the thought process that Kelley was showing up his manager for putting his precious skills into a game where the Nats had a 24 run lead (seriously, the Mets were losing 25-1 and that is not a typo). Unprofessional and all that. Zero tolerance. But if you watch the video, it seems more likely that Kelley was pissed off at the umpire crew showing him up on the field of play and giving him conflicting demands, distracting Kelley into surrendering a 3-run home run. And that’s the way that Kelley’s agent explains it...........But it’s the Nats, don’t forget. They have themselves convinced that all is well.........Which is why they were not about to trade away Bryce Harper, except for all the work that they put into potentially trading away Bryce Harper..........
Always follow the money. Money makes for the ultimate opinion. The power brokers are bickering over how strong the Red Sox and Yankees are, and how they are jockeying for American Baseball Supremacy there in the northeast.....Mostly, it’s the Red Sox and then everybody else.....But the dollars say Astros, or Dodgers...........
Francisco Liriano, a person whose career is performed by spending almost all their professional time on grass, was scratched a couple of days ago due to some allergic reaction. Liriano then underwent tests to determine what he might be allergic to. The tests came back. He is allergic to grass..........
Now that Papa John’s has removed the John from their bad pizza making, the Rangers have re-imposed bad pizza on their fans..........
What it is with New York pitches and Hand/Foot/Mouth disease this year?. .........Thor has a sense of humor about it............
When being a baseball fan inside a baseball stadium becomes too much to handle for the baseball skipper managing the game that the baseball fans are paying to see..........
Do we really want to know who are baseball players are as human beings? It may be ugly.............But, then again, it may just break your heart for all the humanity of it............
The Duffle Bag
The MFY are entitled to 1st place, dammit. Just ask their coaches............Will the new Sandlot project be the second time that Hollywood ruins a franchise not with a sequel, but with a prequel? (And, yes, I’m looking at you, Jar-Jar.)..........Ummm, not safe?..........Little League Home Runs are the bestest home runs..............Rodney does it again. Not against Lindor this time.............Doesn’t finding a bunch more rare baseball cards make those rare baseball cards a little bit less rare?...........Welcome back to the AL West, Cameron Maybin............