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Not good enough. Simple as that.
Can’t pitch. Can’t score. Just in time to head off to Texas to face the Rangers for 4 games and the Astros for 3. Those guys must be drooling at the extended break they are going to get before the All-Star break.
At least I am reading that Skipper Brad is getting pissy about this kind of shit............”It’s unacceptable...”...........Damn straight, Skipper...........
-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Tommy La Stella is not a starter on the AL All-Star team this year, but he is still named as a reserve so the odds are he will get some innings and at least one At Bat............DJ LeMahieu is very deserving. Deserving enough that Jeff Passan wants to write some column inches about LeMahieu for MVP............
($$) - But, yeah, La Stella is having season that nobody saw coming. I would bet that Billy Eppler didn’t see this, either..............
Matt Harvey is pursuing some technological insights into why he sucks. Give him credit for being open-minded and dedicated to pursuing all options to turn himself into something of value............
Welcome up to the bigs again, two-way player Jared Walsh.....Hey, he out-pitched Andrew Heaney and Cam Bedrosian yesterday. And his Batting Average is higher than that of Kole Calhoun, Justin Bour, Jonathan Lucroy, Albert Pujols, Zack Cozart, Peter Bourjos.............
Shohei Ohtani is having a very good week. Two more home runs yesterday............
I can emphasize with Tyler Skaggs and his frustration for getting yanked early. If only Skipper Brad had not been forced to endure the May 8th game against Detroit...or the May 13th game against Minnesota...or the May 19th game against Kansas City...or the June 6th game against (oops!) Oakland..........
Mike Trout needs a consistent rival? For whom? Some needy sportswriter? We already know that Trout is a chill guy who just wants to play baseball very well. I would posit that the only rival Mike needs is himself, trying to out-perform his slump spells...........
Brief moment of Trout Porn: Mike is tracking to be the youngest MLB player in history to record four 10-WAR seasons............
Wildredo Tovar made it through waivers and is still in the org, being assigned to Salt Lake City...........
Ohtani ads in Japan. I think I need that poster in my life. It’s pretty cool to see an LAA logo showcased in another country (not to mention Victor’s signature call).........
JC Ramirez may be nearing his return to MLB, but it appears that he left his fastball back in 2017..........
Weekly Mike Trout Career WAR Perp Walk. After winning AL Player of the Week for his production the week before last, Mike actually went backwards last week. He batted only .182 and was negative 0.1 WAR. He passed nobody on the Career bWAR list. As expected from last week, Trout IS tied for 100th place on the list, but he hangs on by his fingernails.............
Everywhere In Baseball
Now that the All-Star rosters have been set, all the snub opinions have been published. Snubbed names include (from TheSportingNews) Gleyber Torres, Yoan Moncada and especially Rafael Devers......From ESPN we get Bryce Harper and Manny Machado (of course) Max Muncy. On the AL side they tab Gleyber Torres (again), Yoan Moncada (again), and Rafael Devers (again), then Xander Bogaerts, Marcus Semien, Max Kepler, Byron Buxton, Brandon Lowe, Hunter Dozier and Tommy Pham......CBS Sports names as snubs about half the 25-man rosters in baseball. But they emphasize Luke Voit, Xander Bogaerts, Gleyber Torres (notice a trend?), Rafael Devers (yup), and Trey Mancini............Yahoo?, Trey Mancini because he’s the 10th-best outfielder in the AL, in a sport where we don’t even need 6 of them on the ASG roster...........The Mothership...where it’s Max Muncy and Tommy Pham and Luke Voit all over again..............
Here you go. Just pick the rosters by WAR. That’s not a bad outcome............
Yasiel Puig made for a great handful of comedy over the weekend. First we have him going into a rage after HBP. As usual, the rage and indignation factors go up exponentially in direct proportion to how many other people are preventing Puig from actually coming into contact with the object of his ire (in this case, Cubs pitcher Pedro Strop......After the game, reporters were sure to talk to Strop about the Puig episode. “It’s no secret, he’s stupid. He’s stupid as (expletive).””Expletive” here is a placeholder for the f-bomb......This is the same Yasiel Puig who believes that a guy like Madison Bumgarner has an issue with Puig because Bumgarner hates young people...........Somehow all this is something that the Reds want to celebrate............Because Yasiel Puig is such a role model............
And the Home Run Derby roster is filling out......Baby Vlad is the youngest player to accept the invite......The full roster (3 more guys) will be named officially on Wednesday night......It will not include Mike Trout. Because although Trout gets invited every year, he keeps saying no. Mike will probably start doing The Derby when he is on the down slope of his career......So why the hell not Shohei Ohtani??......Ohtani actually WANTS to be invited..............
Wow. That London series was so much fun for MLB that they can forget Asia for a while. They got enough to handle for the time being..............It was also a lot of fun for the Brits.............Who showed some amazing determination............And the broadcasting? Holy shit but that sounded like World Cup stuff. Maybe Arte should move to London??............
We got a first-hand look at how badly the Cincinnati Reds play baseball. The broadcast team is pretty crappy, too............
In that Cincinnati-Chicago game, we had a fan-interference call that really ticked off Joe Maddon and Anthony Rizzo. Both of those guys are clearly wrong (you can find the video here), as even the kid doing the interference apologizes to Reds left fielder Phillip Ervin and clearly taps his chest saying that it was his bad..............
Brendan McKay gets called up and has his first career start for the Rays. 5 1/3 perfect innings? 6 total innings, 1 hit, 1 walk, no runs allowed?? Against a Rangers team tied for 7th most runs scored in MLB? Tyler Skaggs should take note...........
Department of Unfortunate Irony: British fan at baseball game gets injured when bullpen pitcher tries to offer up a souvenir baseball to the fans, and it caroms off some protective netting and breaks her nose.............
That shit-show among youth baseball not-very-grown-ups and their brawl that was sparked by arguing the plate umpire’s calls? The one where that plate umpire is a 13-year old kid himself?? MLB umpire Chris Guccione invited the young man and his family to the Dodgers-Rockies game to show his support............
The Duffle Bag
I know that I am in the minority here, but I really like these modified Baltimore Orioles uniforms.............Seriously. Are the mets actually TRYING to look like bumbling fools?.............I’m surprised that the mets didn’t give Joey Chestnut indigestion............(h/t reddit) The Marlins play like fools, but not because they are trying to look like fools. They are trying to look like baseball players, which is just sad..............The Tacos took on The Margaritas, and I was hoping that the game would get chippy............Rick Porcello is going to have to live with this for the rest of his life..............(h/t UniWatch) Oakland Colisseum before Al Davis ruined it............
