TuesdoLinks: Nothing Left in the Tank

Back in Arlington for the first time since the death of Tyler Skaggs.

So I figured it out. It’s me. Every time I have the chance to watch a full Angels road game on television, I catch the game where we get a Cam Bedrosian implosian. I saw it in Cleveland. I saw it in Houston. Now I saw it in Arlington. Cam’s family needs to pay me to stay away from the television. Yuck.

But there it was. Dillon Peters was fed a huge 7-1 lead and ran out of gas in the 5th, exiting still up 7-2 but leaving after loading the bases. In a blink it was 7-5, where it remains until Cam took over in the 8th and tied things up. 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk. The Halos had just loaded the bases in the 8th and did nothing with it. Now, with the game tied, the Halos loaded the based in the 9th and did nothing with it. The Halos came back up and loaded the bases in the 10th - FOR A THIRD CONSECUTIVE TIME - and did nothing with it.

So it was rather anticlimatic that the Halos did nothing of merit in the 11th, setting up the Rangers to then small ball Noe Ramirez into submission. Ramirez opened with 2 outs and in typical LAA fashion the opposition was then unleashed. Walk + single + infield hit = winning run scored. Angels lose 8-7 and it was a team effort. A well-earned loss. Huge missed opportunities on offense (6 for 14 with RISP and 12 men left on base). Weak pitching. Unimpressive defense. Consumptive over-management. An all-around effort. Yuck.

Is it just me, or is it really true that Mike Trout tends to fair poorly if he misses any regular season game for any reason (planned, injury, whatever)? He did get a couple of singles, but there were also 2 K’s, 2 weak infield pop outs, and a dropped fly ball that was graciously ruled a hit instead of an error. Yuck.

Doubleheader today and we see our only RHP starter for the whole series - on either side - with Jaime Barria. Yeah, 7 of 8 starters in this Arlington series are LHP.

Grind your way through these It’s-A-Left-Handed-Frenzy-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

Mike Trout, who is better than every baseball player you have ever liked and possibly ever will like, is showcased on what might be the finest single graphic of the brilliant Mike Trout career we have been enjoying, that I have ever seen..............And on this chart, the trend to note is how Mike is closing the gap and on a superior trajectory in home run totals..........

Miguel Del Pozo up, Jose Suarez down...........

($$) - Jeremiah Jackson has discovered POWER. I hope that now that he found it, he keeps it. His frame certainly does not look the type...........Jackson made the MLB Pipeline Prospect Team of the Week.............

This should be wrong. Mike Trout should NOT be the next jersey number to be retired for the Angels. The correct answer should be jersey #15..........

($$) - Our Halos remain one more short losing streak away from dropping out of “The Long Journey To The Middle” tier and down into the “Cockroaches and clubhouse fights” tier...........

Here is your 2020 Trmpe Spring Training schedule...........

($$) - In this 35 Under 35 review of important people in our sport who are not players, LAA Director of Baseball Operations is the opening profile. Interesting factoid: “Ball got on big-league radars through his writing career more than his playing career, posting his research on SB Nation’s Beyond The Box Score...”...........

Everywhere In Baseball

MLB struggling to figure out how to deal with domestic violence. The solution, though, is simple. If you are a team with a player suspended for DV, just trade said player to Houston. The Astros will pretend like nothing happened, and they have all kinds of prospects to send back...............

Ok, I have heard this story before. More than twice. Chris Sale is out for the season due to arm problems. He gets a medical check. Medical check claims that he doesn’t need TJ surgery...he is in line for an injection and rest. Maybe a follow-up in 6 weeks or so, but he will be back, avoiding surgery. If that actually happens for Sale than the Red Sox pitchers are waking up to a different brand of Wheaties than LAA pitchers of recent vintage........... But the real pisser in Sale being done is that this is the nail in the coffin for the 2019 hopes of Red Sox fans everywhere and I would love to be in a position to mock them. Instead we are even a little bit worse..............

The only time I want to be caught defending the home run barrage of the current era is when the batter is wearing a Halo. Other than that, hell no...........

Funky rule changes are a curiosity until baseball raises it’s hydra head of a thousand intriguing circumstances. Then those funky rule changes just, well, give off a funky smell. As in taking a perfect game into extra innings only to see a funky rule change be injected to turn off the event prematurely and replace it with toy baseball...........

Oakland’s one-time premier pitching prospect A.J. Puk will finally make The Show and getting derailed by TJ surgery last year. Puk is not where he once was (yet, anyway), but we will probably see him in the 5 spoiler games we have left with the A’s..............

When we get to Houston we will see brand-new extended netting...........The Atlanta Braves are also extending their netting..........

And while in Houston, we are going to see Gerrit Cole doing his showcase mound work for LAA scouts in advance of BIlly Eppler’s big contract offer in December..........

Billy Hamilton got picked back up.............

ARod dissing eSports, apparently without realizing that both he AND his employer are heavy into eSports..................But then behind Puk in the Oakland farm system would be Nathan Patterson, the fan who blew a 96mph in a fan pitching cage at a Rockies game which then went viral. Patterson made his debut and struck out all 3 batters he faced...........

Maddy Freking was making things happen in Williamsport!. I say ‘was’, because Midwest lost the elimination game versus Southwest and their tourney is over...........And it seems to be a good reminder for MLB people to spend time at the LLBWS, that the game can be a joyous event for everyone............

The Duffle Bag

Oh great. The Yankees have a new schtick..............Try to be a bad ass, and then...............Quirky factoid of the day...........The independent baseball 2018 American League champion Kansas City T-Bones got themselves evicted from their own home stadium..........(h/t reddit) Ted Williams considered the shift a sign of progress..........Little Leaguers mocking Craig Kimbrel.