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It’s Mike Trout’s birthday! Happy 27th, Master Trout. May you return to the field. May you hit a home run or two for mom. May you steal a base or two for dad. May you rob a few home runs over the fence for your siblings. And may you win the game with a walk-off for your bride.
Last night baseball fans back in Detroit got a first-hand look at SoCal fire. Out in the distant skies the Holy Fire roared in the Trabuco Canyon area, spewing the common orange-brown smoke into the blue skies of he early evening. Down on the field itself, another holy fire was blazing. It was the bottom of Mike Scioscia’s LA Angels patchwork batting order.
Andrelton Simmons, Jose Briceno, Kaleb Cowart and Eric Young Jr. (I love that guy!) all combined to go 7 for 12. That is 7 out of 8 total Halo hits. They also scored 5 of the 6 Halo runs, and drove in 5 of the 6 RBI’s.
We also got Simmons’ brilliant defense...and Simmons’ power bat...and EYJ’s brilliant defense...and EYJ’s power bat...(Is there an echo in here? Have I told you I love that guy?!)...and Cam Bedrosian entering in the top of the 6th with the bases loaded and nobody out, and shutting down the Tigers completely. Miracles, all.
And when the dust cleared, the Angels had won 6-2...........
Have some Ice-Cream-And-Cake-And-Blow-Out-The Candles-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Shohei Ohtani News
Shohei is throwing harder and harder. The towel therapy is new to me, though...........He is getting closer to returning to the mound, according to Scioscia............
A Little Bit Of Mike Trout News
Mike Trout news on the past week was pretty bleak. But at least there remains the Mike Trout impact on young fans............
Trout remains day-to-day-to-day-to-day-to-day-to-day.....but now with cortisone! New and improved?..........
In the larger picture, we all have to remain fair and open-minded and admit that Jose Ramirez of the Indians is having every bit as good a season as Trout. And Ramirez may be a long-term real deal. the kind of thing I drool about out of the 3B position. If only Mike would learn to slide, and learn not to have a month-long mid-season slump..........
But in the largest picture, Mike Trout is a god of WAR..........
And this is the most realistic way of moving people away from all that Trade Trout nonsense. In forecasting which players on each team will still be on the same team come 2025, when we get to the Angels it’s Mike. “Put it this way: If Trout is not, the Angels might as well raze the place.”..........
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Hey, lookit here! Our fan love for our TV broadcast team is improving. Victor, Gubi, Jose and crew have moved up from #9 to #6. We still have work to do, though. Our guys are still 3rd in California, and only 2nd in the Southland...........
No, you did not win the Honorary Bat Kid contest to meet Mike..........
That rising farm system has risen up to Salt Lake City, and making waves with the Bees..........Also, Taylor Ward currently leads all of MiLB (qualified players only) in batting average with .348.............
It looks like Jim Alexander of The Daily Bulletin is an HH’er. He shares the same take I gave you all yesterday morning, that Mike Scioscia didn’t really deny the Rosenthal clip about his end-of-season retirement.............
The Halo pitching staff continues to be The Crystal Palace. A day after sharing that Tyler Skaggs snapped back to the DL, Nick Tropeano had to leave the game last night with yet another bout of shoulder tightness. That’s what took him down the last time...........
Everywhere In Baseball
Today was also supposed to be the 30th anniversary of the first night game at Wrigley Field. But it got rained out..........
The A’s acquired Mike Friers from the Tigers to add to their playoff push down the stretch. That much is publicly known. But I wonder about the gamesmanship that went on behind the scenes. First, Friers was an Oakland target before the deadline. Bob Nightengale even jumped the gun and announced a done deal, since removed. So the whole world knew that the A’s coveted Friers. And getting Friers would hurt the Mariners, having now fallen back of Oakland and out of a playoff spot, most of all. Now that we are past the deadline, trades can still be made. To pull this off, the Tigers had to put Friers onto the waiver wire. Had the Tigers put Friers onto the wire as of August 1st, Oakland would have had first shot with the waiver priority becuase that was the last moment their record was worse than the Mariners. But if that had been done, the waiver rules require a trade within 2 business days. The deal would have concluded Friday, August 3rd, yes? Since then, the Mariners have had the worse record, and Jerry Dipoto got a shot at claiming Friers before Oakland. If Dipoto makes that claim, he blocks the A’s. Detroit can revoke Friers and cancel the process but that’s it for Friers this season. Or, Detroit can make a trade with Dipoto. That last one is silly because Jerry has emptied his cupboards and the Tigers want future stock. No deal was going to be made with the M’s, so Dipoto was pretty free to block his competition with a simple administrative move. And he did not. I wonder why not?.........
Oakland has been hot. So Oakland is the new media darling. It’s what baseball writers do. (That ‘hotness’ is about to be challenged, and don’t be surprised if some regression sets in.) But when looking at how the A’s got to where they are, one idea by one such writer jumps out at me. That would be Step #1: “Trade your closer, dummy”. There is nothing in baseball as mercurial as a bullpen arm. When you have such an arm that is desirable on the trade market, it means that your closer is currently riding a hot streak. Their trade value will never again be as high. Get some talent for that hot streak while you can, because you are only months (if not weeks) away from seeing all value out of that arm evaporate forever..........
As a guy who roots for a team that lost all 6 of their games to Boston this year, getting outscored 49 runs to 12 and only the final 2 games being considered anything close, I can say without hesitation that the Red Sox are pretty good at exposing more than just the Yankees. Even the Astros are even with them, at 2 - 2. Only the White Sox and A’s have a winning record against them so far, and the White Sox’s time is coming later this month...........
This is so Boston. JD Martinez, after the Red Sox swept the Yankees and created a large gap in the standings, is quick with the Red Sox chest thumping. “Aroldis Chapman is ‘not as intimidating’ anymore”. Martinez has face Chapman exactly twice this year, and has seen only 6 total pitches. Way back on May 9th he scratched out a meaningless single off Chapman, connecting on that 86.3mph slider that Chapman uses as his change up. he had whiffed on that same pitch earlier in that at-bat. He could not handle Chapman’s 100+ mph heat. And then Sunday night he swung at the first pitch he saw from Chapman, a 98.5mph fastball. So he has still do do anything with Chapman’s better stuff. And he has barely seen Chapman at all. But the Boston mouth cannot help but flap..........
We are heading to a new reality: 5 teams every year that will reach 100 wins, and 5 teams that will reach 100 losses. We are already getting pretty close...........
No, the bench coach is not in charge of keeping the dugout clean and tidy. He is more of a personal secretary to the manager. But, yeah, don’t go throwing the bubblegum bucket around or anything...........
Baseball has this 19-year old kid who might shock everybody into re-stacking their Player Power Rankings all too soon. His name is Juan Soto and he plays for the Nationals..........
The Pirates are also refusing to stand pat, taking yet another piece of the Tampa Bay pie in shortstop Andy Hechavarria. Hilariously, the Rays’ 2019 payroll obligation is now down to $10.167 million. If they manage to trade away Kevin Kiermaier, it will be nothing but $2 million still owed to the Giants’ Evan Longoria, and their arb kids...........
What does a guy do when his playing days are over, Scott Boras was not getting him billion dollar contracts, and never made it out of the minor leagues. For Bobby Malek, the answer is to buy a Jimmy John’s franchise and stop getting paid slave wages..........And that certainly beats trying to eke out an existence on an MLB pension..........
When you have to fill a huge venue 81 times every year, you need to hold down your entry fees to each one of those events. Baseball knows that this is a problem they have to solve, because it has seen this before. Arte knows this, too, which is why the LAA game experience remains among the more affordable in MLB...........
And the whining over the MLB popularity problem just keeps getting better and better. Recall that at the start of the season everybody but Yankee and Red Sox fans were biter over the number of times that MLB and FOX would be showcasing Yankees/Red Sox games on Sunday Night Baseball. And here we now have it. East coast writers complaining that those games mean an 8:10PM start time for them, and why THAT is killing Baseball. Maybe the MLB Front Office and the AL East should just secede from the Union and have their own little baseball world to themselves..........
Uh, didn’t we just do this a couple of weeks ago? Rougned Odor (AL) and Matt Carpenter (NL) are Players of the Week? Why, yes. Yes we did. Sorry, Jose Ramirez, but we already know that the MLB pickers love the long ball most of anything.........
I’m warning y’all. Sports gambling is going to own your eyeballs pretty soon. Gambling ads are already paying dividends for CBS. Consider yourself warned..........
The Duffle Bag
Thanks, Uniwatch, for guiding me to these classic old Kodachrome photographs of Baseball Americana - here and here. They come from this publication.........Well, on the upside, the Mariners Streaker will get that $80 from his buddies AND free air fare to return home to Ireland..........A guy turns a $500 raffle drawing into a $50,000 Mickey Mantle card, and that’s not what shocks me the most. What strikes me the most is that formal baseball card grading service still found something to bitch about over a card that came out of an unopened 1955 deck...........Cry me a river of injury tears, Astros fans..........Moving to japan and need a job? I got one for you. Data Engineer for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles..........Giancarlo Stanton is among the MLB leaders in striking out...and there is a reason for that............That extra-innings start a guy on second base rule just made for a clown outcome. A no-hitter, 1-walk, loss............Angle Fernandez admits what we all know: he ain’t perfect..............
OT: With this tragic news, where shall the world now turn in order to locate exorbitantly expensive massage chairs that nobody buys, anyway, or stocking-stuffer micro drones that shatter against the family room furniture in a matter of minutes after powering up the first time?