TuesdoLinks: Halos Avoid a Loss, Welcome Texas

29 games left. Only 4 of those in August, and then we are in the final lap of September. And September 1 is when we can make call-ups.

We are 7 games under .500 and odds are long for an 18-11 finish...

We have an elimination number of 8 for the AL West title and 17 for the playoffs.

It’s a losing season, but that does not mean that all is lost. Dan Szymborski proposes that Jose Rojas get the September call-up...AND...not just to sit on the bench and watch Albert Pujols grow old. Personally, I would give Rojas the 3B time for those final 4 weeks instead of Thaiss. Then both will have serious some taste of Anaheim before showing up in Tempe next Spring.

Welcome to Countdown-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

($$) - Yeah, I don’t get it, either. Jaime Barria started 26 games last season, finishing with an ERA of 3.41, and ERA+ of 124 and a bWAR of 2.6. That’s 5th Starter material on any MLB ballclub. But he got yanked around at the opening of 2019, didn’t come up for serious air until July, got bounced a bit back and forth with AAA and passed up for other experiments, and is still working to reclaim any sort of groove. Starting with July 24th, He has 5 decent starts out of 6 tries so we know that 2018 Barria is still in there. But what with all the mess that has been the rotation this year it’s a shame that the brain trust didn’t just park Barria back into the #5 slot and be done with it - letting what happens, happen - months and months ago..............

So now, with little reason (or alternatives) for Billy Eppler and Skipper Brad to go elsewhere, Barria is back in the 5th saddle again, trying to make the most of it..........

We already know that we won’t see Jo Adell called up in September. But why not the blistering hot Brandon Marsh? He might eat into Brian Goodwin’s time and Goodwin has been a blessing, but I would rather see him rotate with Calhoun.........

Cam Bedrosian “bouncing back’ via his slider might need some qualification. Cam’s 2018 was not the horrid one. His 2017 was his horrid season. (Well, his 2015 wasn’t so hot, either.) Thus, Can had a shit season, then a far less than shitty season, and now a decent season (except for the games where I catch him on the road via TV). Doug White may have helped him tune that slider, but somebody please tell me that this happened in February of 2018?..........

Mike Trout is drifting up the echelon’s of history, now leaving behind the Talent Tier of the Mickey Mantles..........Seriously, in a couple of years he will be beyond Albert Pujols and in just 3 more years he could be in the Top 5..........

Anaheim needs more time to hide the land appraisal from their citizens while they claim to be busy reviewing Arte’s stadium options. I think I wrote that right............

Ty Kelly has retired. I know. You need to look that one up..........

Everywhere In Baseball

It’s one of those things about the world in which we live, but give the Dodgers and Yankees a little success and their franchises and fan bases (including the writers who cover them) simply flip to the entitlement of a World Series..............

Which brings me to the Oakland A’s....They totally steamrolled the Royals last night. The Royals even made Jurickson Profar look like a real Major Leaguer. All in, the A’s scored 19 runs and their offense collected a combined fWAR of 1.2 as 7 guys posted positive vibes in a single game! That’s how you step on a team that has chosen to lay down...Anyway, I have been chirping for weeks and weeks that the A’s are practicing witchcraft again. Hell, they are 3-0 against the Yankees. So we don’t even have to get into how the baseball world wants to ignore the Astros and just crown NY, we can start by warning the pinstripes that they might not even get so far as to face the Astros. There is another AL West team that is playing great baseball and not getting enough attention to alert the Northeast..........

The Gabe Kapler and Mickey Callaway experiments ongoing with the Phillies and Mets seem to lend credence to the idea that baseball teams mostly win and lose in spite of anything the manager does. Neither team looks likely to make the playoffs and that’s upsetting to fans with Great Expectations, but that’s more the fault of the players being run out onto the field. And yet, guys like Gabe Kapler keep trying their damndest to make a difference..........

Hmmm. The Braves have recently invested in a slugging third baseman and a starting pitcher, and those seem to be working out for them. It helps to still have $23 million in more headroom than does Billy Eppler, I suppose..........($$) - And putting solid talent around a Trout-class phenom seems to be an intriguing concept..........And, yes, Acuna does appear to have Trout-like potentials. He is doing much better since the start of June.........

Among 7 surprises to this MLB season, Joe Rivera finds that the Tigers being worse than the Orioles as one of their 7. Need I remind that the Angels are a combined 6-7 versus those two teams?..........

That Nathan Patterson kid who walked into a pitching cage at a Rockies game and ended up getting signed by Oakland? Still looking pretty damned good in MiLB..........

This sounds pretty crazy to me. David Ortiz is hiring his own investigation task force to look into why he was a shooting victim. First, this kind of thing does not lead to much assistance from the local police department and that can’t help. Second, Ortiz is not his own judicial department so whatever gets uncovered needs to be handed over to the local anyway, and they might then be hamstrung in their ability to use such evidence based on chain of custody. Third, his lead investigator is a guy from Boston. Sure, the Boston guy is going to hire other private investigators, but who in the DR is going to cooperate with some outside snoopy noob?..........

Oops! Yesterday I linked tot he news that participation in youth baseball was on the rise. I missed the part where participation in Little League Baseball was on the decline. That can’t be good. The implication there would be that more kids are diverting to travel ball. More cost. More competitive and, potentially, more overbearing adult behavior,

The Duffle Bag

Chicago fans in a brawl? Say it ain’t so, Polly!.............’Cool! I don’t have to look like a 1920’s milk man anymore!’ sez 50% of MLB players everywhere..........We have a Baby Harper. Krew Aron, because trick spelling is de rigueur. In the IT world, “Krew” is a tool. But I’m not gonna go there..........