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Combine an opener with a short-handed rotation and add in a dash of National League rules, and what do you get? You get a full roster of activity. All hands on deck kinda stuff. 7 pitchers consumed (well, 6 if you don’t count that dude impersonating Hansel Robles in the 9th), and 18 of the 25 guys on the entire roster. 8 different guys contributed on offense, and the highlights included both a home run by Mike Trout AND a laser throw strike from right-center field assist put-out at home plate by Mike Trout.’ (At 98.6mph, it was the hardest baseball thrown all night.)
All of that was just enough,just barely enough for a 5-4 victory. That’s 3-0 on the season against the Dodgers with 1 remaining. The Angels have now won or tied 19 of the 23 regular season interleague series versus the Dodgers all time. You can’t say “Los Angeles” without giving a shout out to the Angels.
Somebody should point out to the Astros how terrible it is that the Angels are being forced to play a 7:10 PM start game tonight, and they have to immediately travel home afterwards to conclude their road trip in order to make a 7:07 PM start tomorrow. Ludicrous.
Let’s jump on these Lords-Of-LA-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Matt Harvey is officially a free man............
Tyler Skaggs has officially been put to rest...........And the Dodgers are doing the Skaggs family a solid, donating half their upcoming 50/50 raffle to The Skaggs Baseball Foundation...........And the Players’ Union also makes a solid donation............
Jo Adell’s diary of his MLB Futures Game experience. My favorite stretch: “...in the Futures Game, you can be prepared for the velocity but you’re not prepared for the movement on the ball...That’s what happened in my last at-bat when I faced Luis Patino, one of the top prospects for the Padres, in the bottom of the eighth inning...He throws a fastball unlike any other I’ve seen in the minor leagues — his pitch rises up in the zone and cuts away from right-handed hitters. He caught me off guard with a few of those pitches in my last at-bat, and when I got down two strikes I was looking for one of these cutters to drive to right field...That plan worked out poorly.”.........
Everywhere In Baseball
What happens when a team fails to manage their 25-man roster properly, and chooses to tank a single game? Do we call that the Gregg Popovich?..............
Yahoo! has undecided to pay much attention to the Mets. Right when paying attention to them has gotten most humorous...........
What the hell? We should stop calling baseball players “millionaires”? Hell, with a house in OC and my 401K I could call myself a frikkin’ millionaire. And even the entry level of these guys make 3 times my annual income...........
Once there was a time when Albert Pujols taught Yasiel Puig an important lesson....Never let it be said that Puig failed to learn the lesson he was taught..........
The Atlantic League is sticking with RoboUmps for the rest of this season. Why can I not find any in-depth reviews of this in action yet? I would have thought the media would be all over this..........
($$) - The history of MLBTradeRumors.com. Fascinating...........
The David Ortiz mystery is...well...mysterious..........
Sandy Koufax getting statue at Dodger Stadium. I suppose that’s safe, since Dodger Stadium ain’t going anywhere..........In fact, Dodger Stadium is getting $100 million worth of fresh lipstick..........Just in time for the All-Star game............
Gerrit Cole raced to 200K’s this season. Second fastest ever. Cole can thank the AL West for that. He has 42 against the Rangers, 21 against the Mariners, 20 against the Angels and 15 against the A’s. (Something that the entire Houston franchise should be thankful for. They are not so powerful outside the AL West, going only 31-26. It’s that 34-11 in house that has them considered a top MLB power.)..........
Dwight Gooden, arrested for DUI AGAIN. This time he pissed his pants..........
($$) - If a pitcher throws a “message pitch”, does it actually have an impact?. If you lack a subscription, or the time, the shortest answer is yes. Yes it does..........
YouTube’s first MLB game peaked at 200,000 viewers. That’s more than every MLB draws on average except the Yankees, and the Yankees beat that just barely (we linked earlier to the news that the Yankees were down 26% from their 277K average in 2018)........... And Dish/Sling/FOX got their bargaining act together at the last second, at least temporarily..........
Oakland is going to be serving up two simulcast game broadcasts. One is normal, and one is to be Bloomberg Television equivalent............
Side note. The world will never stop creating new programming languages. You would be amazed at how powerful you can become with technology by mastering one. If you haven’t jumped on any gravy train yet, and are curious about baseball data, you might as well try Rust...........
Trade Rumors
Trade season is becoming another victim of the tanking phenomenon. As tanking teams turn into superteams, the crapshoot nature of the playoffs lessens considerably. That makes the Wild Card entry position far less meaningful as a valid playoff opportunity. And that makes borderline teams targeting a WC slot less willing to become buyers at the deadline. And that increases the number of them acting as sellers. And more teams dumping a the deadline is not the look that MLB wants. Worse, it only serves to consolidate more talent onto the superteams..........And since the MLBPA killed the post-deadline waiver trade season, hoping to get teams to move earlier and more aggressively and become more competitive, once again we meet The Law of Unintended Consequences..........
Actually being the victim of being traded can truly suck..........
Bumming around MLB, some random MLB exec believes strongly that Madison Bumgarner is not going to be traded. But, supposedly, every contending MLB team sent scouts to watch MadBum pitch in Chicago. That generates two questions. (1), is that unnamed exec going to reject some scout’s travel expenses? And, (2), does anybody really need to scout Madison Bumgarner in July of 2019 to determine how good of a pitcher he is??? It’s not as if there is any lack of understanding or information about the guy anymore..............
Dang. Noah Syndergaard might be stuck as a Met for years to come............
Mike Minor is a sharp enough dude for me. His No-trade list includes the Yankees. I would do the same. If the Yankees wanted me, my NT clause would give me the lever to pull some cash out of the bulging MFY wallet..........
Hey, if we are going to fantasize about how the Halos could make a blockbuster deal, why not go all the way?! How about Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg from the Washington Nationals for OF Jo Adell, P Jose Suarez, P Griffin Canning, 2B Jahmai Jones, OF Brandon Marsh??..........(It’s all a lark, by the way.)..........
The Duffle Bag
Trolling Yankees fans is always fun. Especially since they have such thin skin about it all.................I look at this as Yairo Munoz being the best boy scout possible, always being prepared..........You go give ‘em hell, Ashlynn!!!..........