HumpLinks: Angels E-rased

Meanwhile, over in Houston, Wade Miley took the mound for the Astros. Miley owns the Halos. In the 6 games he has faced us he is 5-0 with a slash line against of .181/.235/.312. As far as we are concerned, the dude is a living monster. Oakland, however, was pretty pissed off at the way Houston abused them on Monday night. They chose to do something about it. Not something as in let’s sit around for six extra innings against the Red Sox waiting for somebody to hit a home run. More like a “frenzied hitting” kind of something. Whiffs of 2002. We’re talking single+line out+walk+single+single+single+single+single+single. Wade Miley was gone. 7 runs would score before the miserable corpse of Wade Miley was crossed off the score sheet.

And Oakland was long from being done. They would beat down Cy Sneed. They would beat down Joe Biagini. They would hurt Chris Devenski and Framber Valdez. The final score was 21-7 but Oakland got up 20-3 before they stopped caring. And at 8:30 PM PDT, when Astro Garrett Stubbs popped out to Oakland 2B Sheldon Neuse, the last breath of chance for the 2019 LA Angels left our lungs.

Getting whacked again by the Cleveland Indians 8-0 and granting Zach Plesac the first Complete Game of his young 19-game career was anti-climatic. It did, though, trigger the chance to start seeing some future. At the end, Matt Thaiss, Taylor Ward, Michael Hermosillo and Jared Walsh were all in the game together along with Luis Rengifo. All of those guys got left behind in Tempe when we opened way back in late March.

It’s 18 years today since 9/11. MLB joins in the remembrance.

Nothing like a day of Rendered-Meaningless-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

Season Status Update: We be Eliminated. 79 losses. Only 1 more loss than the White Sox and just 3 away from Pittsburgh. The Angels can rally their way to the 7th draft slot this week if they keep this up (although it looks like the Pirates bullpen is going the extra mile to sabotage their ability to accidentally win). Oh, and Trevor Cahill got in 2.1 more innings of work last night before Skipper Brad came out to pull him while kindly carrying Jared Walsh’s glove. Cahill now has 97 on the season and will surely get his 100-inning bonus AND prevent the Angels from being the first team in history to not have a single pitcher gain 100IP’s for the season...........

Ah. Mike Trout’s nerve issue was a morton’s neuroma. My wife had that, one on each foot. Incredibly painful. She also had surgery, but hers was to remove them outright. And, by the way, they can grow back............Mike will be more impacted by this than just missing a day or two............

($$) - Tommy LaStella is eager to resume that pre-All-Star miracle roll he was on..............

MLB Pipeline pokes Jared Walsh at 1B on their 2019 Prospect Team of the Year.............

Shohei Ohtani working on his air hockey game...........

Everywhere In Baseball

Home Run Derby Update:..... Pete Alonso still owns the lead at 47. .....Mike Trout is still sidelined and going nowhere at 45.....Christian Yelich just LaStella’d himself and is done for the season, capped at 44..........Cody Bellinger and Eugenio Suarez remained at 44 and Jorge Solar is still at 41............

Rob Manfred’s idea of moving the pitcher’s mound back a couple of feet ain’t going to be happening...........

Any month now the FBI is going to be bringing down the hammer on MLB franchises for serious corruption throughout the Latin American signing system. The Dodgers look to be a huge part of the Feds’ bullseye. Maybe Arte’s decision to pull out of Latin America back then was an extremely brilliant move, after all...........

Yesterday I called out an article on FiveThirtyEight that went into the concept of MLB clubs not needing an MiLB system much longer. Personally, I had the opinion that freeing non-MLB players from MLB indentured contracts would be a good thing. Deadspin goes much further into it with their dedicated space and points out much of the folly there. There is some really good points being made here. Their big point is that Minor League Baseball remains very popular among baseball fans and that’s the real point, in the end. Conflicting with the original article is the news that Minor League Baseball attendance was actually UP in 2019. But I want to bring up something I did not bring up yesterday, which Deadspin also overlooks. The current economics of MiLB are heavily subsidized by the pay, however small, that MLB teams cover on behalf of the MiLB franchise owners. If MLB is not there with the paychecks anymore, the MiLB owners would have to cough up that money, and they would have to raise attendance prices to try and cover the new expense. Many would probably fold. That part needs to be figured out first............

The Dave Dombrowski backlash has started. It’s because the Red Sox are going to suddenly turn cheap.....The World Series raised their franchise value through the roof, so firing Dombrowski is a sign that they want to keep all that money and not spend it on holding on to their stars. After all, they can afford it............You can only spend lots of money on players if it comes with lots of winning from players...........So what’s next? Dombrowski to the Angels?...........

($$) - How pro baseball players invented Big League Chew...............

Really. Like I wrote yesterday, the root problem of all this national angst is the word “valuable”. Just change it. To “best”............

The Mets have no adults in charge. Had they, said adult would have thrown themselves between the baseball media and the increasing idiocy that is Mickey Callaway...........

Thank you, Jerry............

The season is almost over, but the impact of the home run frenzy is only just beginning. Just watch how the hyper-active baseball continues to warp Free Agency............

The Duffle Bag

The Dallas Cowboys show us all the future of virtual fan experience.............(h/t UniWatch) Football season is here, and the Oakland A’s have lost their grip on the town............Houston rookie Yordan Alvarez did this.....The Houston Astros did this...............Bruce Bochy went through 24 hours of numerology nirvana yesterday............That time when Tommy Lasorda got so pissed he had the Montreal Expos mascot ejected from the stadium.............Shall we play a game?..............A gentle reminder: foul balls are for kids...............Interesting trick that Ronald Acuna has got going on here. By definition the act of robbing a home run is a near-impossible play, one that the fielder should not make. Therefore dropping such an attempt cannot be ruled an error. Even if dropping said ball in on such an attempt in fair ground and watching it as a Scott Kingery runs all the way around for an inside-the-park home run, that’s not a 4-base error...........

OT: OK. I confess. This is pure gold shit..............