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What a way to ignite an offense. And ignite it, he did. Kole Calhoun, Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout also homered. Trout was a triple away from The Cycle, going 4 for 5 and collecting 8 total bases. He and Ohtani both finished with 3 RBI.
There was pitching. Both sides had pitchers. But clearly the pitchign was not the reason to be watching this contest. In this single game, Trout garnered 0.3 fWAR, Calhoun and Upton 0.2 fWAR, and Ohtani 0.1 fWAR. The offense doubled up the Blue Jays and tallied a series opening 10-5 victory.
Enjoy it while you got it, because today is Tyler Skaggs versus Marcus Stroman. An outcome similar to yesterday would be a major, but welcome, shock.
Light it up with these Uptown-Monday-Night-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Mike Trout remains the top AL All-Star vote-getter, third overall throughout MLB. Tommy La Stella leads at 2B. Shohei Ohtani is a tad outside the voting at 4th for DH..............
So with Justin Upton being activated, somebody had to go and it would most likely have to be an outfielder. The loser was Cesar Puello. Puello was having a nice run on the MLB squad, but there is a reason the guy has been in the Minors his whole life. To presume that the Puello we enjoyed is the Puello that really is across an MLB career is an emotional reaction fraught with eventual doom..........
And then we go through all of this all over again in a couple more days, when Andrelton Simmons gets reactivated..........And Skipper Brad is anxious ($$) “to get the band together”..........
Some Ohtani Porn. “This dude’s turning into, like, Ichiro with power.”.........
Some Trout Porn............
Hansel Robles, fashionista..........
The Angels are still batting an an amazingly interesting outlier pace versus the common MLB meme..........
Everywhere In Baseball
With 1200 guys in MLB, 600 in each league, it’s bound to tbe the case where one randopm guy has a flashy few games between calendar Sundays and grabs the limelight, however briefly before they melt back into the crowd (Alejandro De Aza, anyone?). That’s different than week-over-week superlatives. Which is why, once again, Mike Trout is not the AL Player of the Week. The greatest player of our time has only won this award what, 4 times in his career? And one of those was shared?.............
The Angel Hernandez discrimination lawsuit against the MLB, claiming that the MLB has no right to discriminate against umpires just because they are super shitty, is taking a turn in MLB’s favor. I, for one, would LOVE for the MLB Umpires Union’s own ratings of Hernandez be made public..........
Matt Carpenter tells the world of baseball Front Offices everywhere to Eff Off with that whole shift shit...........
Like I wrote yesterday, with the Yankees bringing on board Edwin Encarnacion, we have an Evil Empire in our midst once again. (And if you feel bad for Cesar Puello for becoming the odd man out, imagine the plight of Clint Frazier!).........
Yes, the Yankees just made the WS Champion Red Sox look irrelevant once again..........So no, Red Sox catcher Christian Vazquez, taking 3 games from the AAAA Baltimore Orioles while the Yankees add the AL leading home run hitter does NOT mean that you are back..........
Craig Kimbrel could be pitching in live MLB games before June it out. 3 months of work, maybe 2 appearances every 3 games?...........
Jonathan Lucroy, take a memo: throughout the MLB, catchers are hitting again. It’s a thing. We should try it.........
Curtis Granderson may never be available again. He may be riding out the final stage of his career in Miami. And he is good with that. When he retires, we probably should make a t-shirt and send it it him, thanking him for the meme...........
$$ - Somewhere out there in Texas, Huston Street is enjoying his retirement. Not as much as we are enjoying Huston Street’s retirement, but that’s another story.........
Figuring out a Home Run Derby lineup is fast becoming a sport unto itself. It’s like slotting where Free Agents might land, or handicapping the draft. But in this era of obscene home run hitting, the normally lamentable Derby is the most intriguing things about the All-Star week..........
Because baseball is weird, baseball gives us weird things to enjoy..........
More weird: “I’m not gonna let you steal my signs, dude. I’m gonna balk your ass over to third base.”..........
Fay Vincent is pushing for athlete equity in the sports empires within which they participate and contribute. After all, they ARE the content. Vincent’s perspective is merely baseball, but the principal applies everywhere. He is arguing that the Player’s Union should be bringing this idea to the table in the next CBA talks. No wonder the owners wanted him out as commissioner so fast. never lose sight of the fact that the commissioner does not represent the interests of the players, and does not represent the interest of the fans. That office serves the owners. Period. End paragraph.........
The Duffle Bag
The TL;DR version of these MLB instructions to umpires would be: “hate everybody”. Now I get it............Great find, Sam Miller. Charlie Finley putting it to the MLB rule concerning right field home run distance designed to protect the Yankees...........The problem with throwing away a College World Series victory is that, unlike MLB, after you make an error such as this you eventually have to go back to school and sit among your fellow students, every one of which knows full well what you did and what it cost them..........