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Well played baseball. Well pitched, well defended, well executed on offense. If only the National League World Series favorites could have played as well as the Angels, we might have had an exciting season series.
Alas, no.
The Angels win again, even as Mike Trout doesn’t do much of anything special (did you realize that Trout’s fWAR for each of the past two games is 0?). It’s kinda boring when Trout plays a game and doesn’t do something amazing, spoiled Halo fan that I am, but we are always saved from such sadness by Halo victories. And, thankfully, we were not facing an AL West team such as the Astros, Rangers, A’s or Mariners - all of whom draw a win against LAA recently. No, we were facing the SoCal powder blue powder puff pretender. Easy win.
The Angels looked crisp and focused in The Latrine last night, and with a quiet Trout we had Kole Calhoun lifting the team up on his shoulders and carrying them to a season sweep, 4 games to none as the Angels down the Dodgers 3 to 2.
In case you had not noticed, Calhoun is having a pretty solid July himself. After last night, his slash line for the month is .263/.364/.526 with an OPS of .890, and with some sterling defense as well. When he entered July, those same numbers for the season to that point were .225/.315/.457 and .810. Not sayin’ that means anything at this point so near a trade deadline, but...
Let’s the boys back across The Orange Curtain with these Four-Games-Out-Of-A-Wild-Card-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Trout Porn: July has been a particularly good month for Mike’s production in spite of multiple challenges. Keep in mind that this month has seen Mike sidelined for the All-Star break, for the death of Tyler Skaggs, and for a calf strain..... HHS is agog with Mike’s SLG in July.....And even when Trout is “cold”, Trout is pretty good.......And, humorously, an official MLB writer on the official MLB web site with “Mike Trout walked into Dodger Stadium and showed Cody Bellinger why he’s the one, true MVP”..........
More Trout Porn: The baseball world went gaga when Trout revealed that he has, as a secret weapon, a 99mph laser cannon.....Hell, even Mike himself was impressed...........
($$) - You are fully aware of Trout’s 5 tools. But you are probably unaware that he has yet another MLB-quality baseball skill that he is leaving unused. He piddled with this skill in actual games long before turning pro, When asked, he admits that he still has the skill, but he is not interested in whipping out his switch hitting talents any more............
Yesterday’s GIF of the Day..........
And the longer version of that whole video, here, needs to be sent over to Houston Astros fans and players as instructional video on how to slide at home plate on a throw from RF...........
Alert! Alert! Blake Parker hit the waiver wire yesterday..........
Sorry. No brainer. Dodger Dogs are far superior to those little cocktail weenies glued to soggy buns wrapped in turd foil that they now serve in Anaheim. I suppose that next time I need to sacrifice a couple of innings in order to track down the Crafty Dogs concession stand at field level.........
Everywhere In Baseball
The Rays and Red Sox fell into Angel Hernandez hell yesterday. The basic premise is that Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled what we were contemplating last season as The Ohtani Conjecture, moving a guy from the mound to a field position to make room for a spot reliever, and then moving him back onto the mound that he can stay in the game. Doing this has an impact on the DH spot, and Cash, Red Sox manager Alex Cora, and crew chief Angel Hernandez all got lost in the shuffling. The overall game time was extended by nearly 30 minutes just to try and sort things out. They were not sorted out. The Red Sox played under protest and MLB has to now sort it all out. Probably with spreadsheets and white boards............And don’t think that the outside world failed to notice..........At the end of the day, one would expect Hernandez to have a grip on the lineup changes and the rules of baseball, and not need to waste 30 minutes trying to explain things to Cora...........
For the vast majority of fans, getting used to watching through netting becomes second nature. (I am still waiting to see what it’s like during a day game.) But that does not mean that it’s not a different vibe, and that sucks for some..........
Gary Sanchez is slumping in July. Badly, horribly, mercilessly. (Or, merely regressing to his mean if you didn’t believe in his hot start in MAY.) the MFY are deep enough that they don’t need to babysit a black hole in their 25-man, so Sanchez conveniently contracted a groin strain, and is off to the IL. To all you MLB GM’s reading this, be aware that this shit is not fooling us.........
I love this headline. “How Kirby Yates went from one of MLB’s worst pitchers to a trade-deadline darling.” When was it that Kirby Yates was one of MLB’s worst pitchers? Oh yeah. That time when he passed through our hands. Yates was horrible in 2015/2016 for the Rays/Yankees where his ERA+ was 50 and 83, respectively We picked Yates up off the waiver wire as soon as 2016 ended. He appeared in 1 game for us, ever, on April 22nd of 2017. He pitched 3 total outs. When he entered in the 8th he had a 4-run lead and when he exited in the 9th that lead was down to 1. He yielded 2 hits, both of which landed beyond the home run fence. He was DFA’d on April 26th, departing with an ERA+ of only 32 (and a Halo carer ERA of 18). The Padres claimed him. And he has not sucked since.He finished 2016 with an ERA+ of 114. His 2018 was 180. And he sits currently at 408 for 2019.........
Tim Tebow update: Tebow injured himself. 8 stitches to his throwing hand due to catching a baseball as an outfielder. I am serious..........
Joey Gallo of the Rangers is also injured, and will miss a month. No tears for Texas but that is ungood for baseball in general to have stars on the sidelines. Our interest in the story, though, is this line: “Joey Gallo, an early season MVP contender and...” In this current era, ‘MVP contender’ in the American League means that you have a shot at collecting some runner-up votes...........
Trade Rumors
It’s looking more likely that Marcus Stroman will definitely move. You need to worry about stuff like this, because if he moves to Anaheim you will focus on what talent goes back to Toronto. And if he doesn’t move to Anaheim you might find him landing in some spot like Oakland, in which we are doomed. The same goes for all these guys we are tracking...............
The Yankees are said to be willing to trade any prospect for Noah Syndergaard. Syndergaard hits the FA market no later than 2022. Would you trade Jo Adell for 2 guaranteed years of Thor?.........
Mathematically, neither a buyer nor a seller should Eppler be..........
($$) - Blargh! Your current World Series Champions, from just over 8 months ago, would be the Boston Red Sox. Things have gone south so quickly for them that Buster Olney of ESPN is using the “sell-off” term..........
The Duffle Bag
Statcasting pigeons.................Yasiel Puig mixing it up in-game. because who doesn’t feel like a shave between innings?.........Just one question: precisely where dos one obtain a men’s formal suit in the color purple?..........
R.I.P. Rutger Hauer, one of Hollywood’s greatest bad guys..........