I wonder what must be going through the heads of guys such as Jonathan Lucroy, Justin Bour, Matt Harvey, Cody Allen - guys who have had careers elsewhere far away from Anaheim but now play under the Halo - when they sit there and watch THE Mike Trout in person. Trout is almost single-handedly lifting the Angels out of their season-opening slump. Those guys know a lot about baseball. They have seen ups and downs. They know the difference between bad, good and great ballplayers. And here they are watching this kid do his brilliant magic first hand, and for their benefit.
That must be pretty cool.
If I were one of them, I would be giddy.
Hey look, everybody, it’s Jhoulys Chacin tonight!
Have some Twelve-More-Years-Of-Greatness-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Here is some fun. In this early season, where some guys are starting off on incredible hot streaks, the news clippings are loaded with hyperbole. “Christian Yelich extends historic home run streak to four games”....”Cody Bellinger is off to a historic start in 2019”.....Yeah. Wow. “Yoan Moncada is ridiculous”. Those guys (among others) are off the kinds of hot starts of which we rarely see in the history of MLB. Record setting, even. And then you meander over to FanGraphs and see this:
So, all that ‘historic’. Ho hum. Almost as good as just another Mike Trout season start. And folks are starting to notice...........Because “friends, today is that day.”.............(You should probably relax, though. His 1.2 fWAR over 10 games projects to 19.4 fWAR over a full season, which we know ain’t gonna happen.)................But, Holy Balls of Fire!...............
And, guess, what? Turns out that Trout is face-meltingly better that even we Halo fans realize.............
And let’s have this Don’t Piss Off Mike Trout legend grow. It worked well for Vlad Guerrero..........
Rangers’ manager Chris Woodward is sure as hell happy to be getting away from Anaheim, and Mike Trout..............
Brian Goodwin, who is surprising the hell out of me (another Billy Eppler plucked out of the heap?), hit his first home run as a Halo. It was a monster shot. 453 feet. 8th-longest this year in MLB............So I go back to my observation from opening weekend. Something is odd about all these moonshots. (Josh Bell hit one 474 feet yesterday, and that is still only the 2nd longest of 2019.)............
The bullpen went 5 innings yesterday and gave up zero runs. The ‘pen ERA for 2019 is now down to 1.53, which leads MLB by a lot............
Andrew Heaney needs some mental rehab. That’s the LA Times version. Here is The Athletic version.............
Tyler Skaggs had a great outing over the weekend. Leaving his sinker in the clubhouse might have something to do with it............
Albert Pujols milestone: passing Ichiro in total hits. He is 20 hits behind Dave Winfield, 25 hits behind ARod, and 51 hits behind Tony Gwynn. Pujols is still some 229 hits out of the all-time Top 10. (The 10th spot currently held by Paul Molitor.)..........
Here comes Griffin Canning, a mix of art & science................
We want those Bees up in Anaheim quick, to surround Mike Trout and get us into the playoff conversation. Well, no, not those bees.............
Zack Cozart is fine.........Justin Upton is not. Upton’s injury, though, has me confused. I thought “turf toe” was some unique kind of injury one might experience from playing on artificial grass. I had no idea it simply meant ‘jammed toe injury’...........
Everywhere In Baseball
According to Ron Kulpa, as an umpire he can do anything he wants. That’s kinda true. What is more true, though, is that he can get his ass fined for doing anything he wants. It’s quite likely that he will get fined for his petty behavior that spiraled out of the bounds of reason in the recent Houston/Texas game. But we will never know about because of CBA rules between the umpire’s union and MLB.............
As if umpires don’t have it tough enough, they have to figure out if a baseball hit some Houston roof rafter in fair or foul territory? I don’t suppose there are yellow painted lines to define fair/foul up in those rafters? There should be............
David Price is noticing that Rob Manfred has no ability to market the best parts of his product............
FanGraphs breaks down the value of each draft pick in the first two plus rounds of the upcoming draft. It’s pretty interesting stuff if you accept the standing FG faith in $9MM per WAR. I don’t, but that’s my problem and not yours....................
I still think this is crazy strange scheduling. The MLB 2019 season officially kicked off on March 20 between the Mariners and A’s. That was 19 days ago. For the rest of us, the season started on March 28th, 11 days ago. And only today will the Cubs have their first home game so that they get to play a game in front of their fans. And for Boston, that doesn’t happen until tomorrow and that is only if the weather co-operates..............And, of course, it would be the Cubs and Red Sox who are off to horrible starts. Almost the worst in MLB.............
Major League is one of the greatest baseball movies that has been, or ever will be made. So even though I might not care for the Dodgers, I have to have mad respect for Steve Yeager, who was the guy who trained up those actors..............
Ok, let’s cover this. Cincinnati Red Derek Dietrich pimped the f#$k out of a home run yesterday. That’s softball league quality showboating right there. Pirates pitcher Chris Archer sure noticed it, and Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli appears to be barking at Dietrich as he crosses home plate. You know what’s coming. When Dietrich came back up to plate, Archer threw a message pitch behind him and all hell broke loose. Yasiel Puig was particularly bonkers. For my part, I am fine with Archer throwing his message pitch behind the batter’s back. Archer could have hit Dietrich if he wanted. Clearly he did not want. So he threw the ball where it would not hit/hurt/harm anybody but still get his point across. Not everybody feels that way............At least we haven’t seen Chris Archer versus Willians Astudillo. Yet..........
I want a submariner on my team. If only because of the kryptonite potential versus Seattle...........
Talk about streaks and slumps, Nats reliever Trevor Rosenthal has yet to retire any batter this season. Which makes me wonder, what would happen if Rosenthal went out to the mound and Chris Davis was batting?............
Dallas Keuchel is lowering his asking price.............
Scott Boras is not very happy at all that MLB teams are locking away his future clients..........
The Save, as a stat, is now in it’s 50th anniversary season............
The Duffle Bag
If you snag a home run ball that was hit by the opposition, and there are no kids nearby, this is why you give the ball to the biggest jerk in our section.............This weekend’s submission to the Department of Bad Timing............Bryce Harper ain’t an Angel ‘cuz Harper ain’t got wings................