Halos Heaven: All Posts by Rick Souddress

Halos Heaven Radio - Awards, Injuries, Astros, and Yankees - oh my!

2019-09-16T20:52:59-07:00

Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports

Jessica, Rick, and Jeffrey talk about the recent rash of Angels injuries. They also talk end of season awards and preview the Angels upcoming matchups against the Yankees and Astros.

As always, you can find us here:

Shohei Ohtani does it all in game that should not have been as close as it was

2019-09-07T20:47:50-07:00

Photo by David Banks/Getty Images

A single player driving in 5 runs should be enough.

Angels 8 White Sox 7

Shohei Ohtani sure does love the White Sox.

After today, the sophomore has more hits, doubles, triples, home runs, total bases, runs, and RBIs against Chicago than he does against any other extradivisional team. Shohei’s entire career to this point has been built upon the ruins of the AL Central and the Windy City is the capitol.

It would not have come as a shock if he had hit for the bicicleta today. He was in prime position in the 5th inning. Falling a triple short of the cycle may be a bit of a meme, but Ohtani doing so was actually kind of disappointing, given the circumstances.

Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

One performance that needs to be recognized was that of Hansel Robles. After an insane battle against some nobody that the White Sox give a 40-man roster spot to, he retired his 20th, 21st, and 22nd consecutive batters to close out his 20th save of the season. Robles has caught a special brand of fire that can only be described as “hard to extinguish when you never get a chance to pitch.”

Whether he is traded this winter or plays out the 2020 season as an Angel, our closer continuing to perform as he has is amazing news. Even if him putting up zeroes is costing us a good position come June...

In other news—

Mike Trout made an appearance!
Andrew Heaney went an extended amount of time with a surmountable amount of runs allowed!
Luis Garcia threw 100!
The White Sox didn’t pass the Angels!
Albert Pujols keeps on chugging!
The baby was lit!

Halos Heaven Radio - Week 23 in Review: Goodwin & Pujols rule the roost

2019-09-04T20:53:16-07:00

Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

Rough and late but worth the wait!

Jessica, Rick, Rahul, and Jeffrey review the Good, Bad, and Meh of last week, look ahead to next (this) week and talk about how awesome wRC+, Albert Pujols, and Brian Goodwin are.

As always, you can find us here:

Angels almost win 5-7

2019-09-03T22:34:45-07:00

Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

The game ended with the A’s up, but it nearly didn’t!

The Angels were so close today!

Channeling the spirit of baseball, the Angels battled to make their opener in Oakland-Alameda almost seem like a winnable affair. Despite the fact that Mike Fiers was on the bump against Jaime Barria, the game always looked to be in reach, even though it totally wasn’t! Props to our boys for keeping up appearances!

Mike Trout got the offense started with some serious sorcery, as the blast he crushed to left field would put the Angels above the Athletics on the board. It’s always cool to tune in and see how Trout will surprise us next, but nobody expected a lead. How fun; I hope history will repeat itself one day.

Alas, the lead would eventually be relinquished, but it sure was a blast while it was here.

While Fiers was not his usual self, failing to achieve that coveted 12-0 since his no-hitter, he did prove to be effective enough to leave with a lead with a little help from Andrelton Simmons. The double-error that he gifted to the A’s proved to be a key part in the unwin, but gee whillickers, are we just happy to be here playing with the big boys or what?

Albert Pujols and Justin Upton did their parts today and we sort of got our money’s worth from them. Jaime Barria was somewhere in the ballpark of lowering his ERA on the season for a while there. Noe Ramirez is still below a 4 ERA. Mejia, Middleton, and Garcia only combined for 3 walks in 3 scoreless innings pitched.

What a day. This match was a perfect 5/7.

Entire team has enough and wins last game of August

2019-08-31T22:13:24-07:00

Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Angels score 7 in the 8th to make the close game a joke.

Despite a rough past couple appearances, Dillon Peters has consistently shown up to play (for an Angel pitcher). In the second-to-last game of the season series against the Red Sox, however, the offense joined him.

Despite an incredibly rough first inning, Peters received yet another quality start as he held the strong Boston lineup to 4 runs, 3 of which were earned. As the game went on, he appeared to get better and better, the 26-pitch opening frame being his biggest mistake. He exited after 6.1 with 6 strikeouts and 0 walks. If nothing else, Peters has been incredible this year at limiting the free pass, a huge accomplishment for any Angel.

The Angel bats, worried that the solid start might go to waste, labored to push across 3 runs and keep the game close. The team was 3-11 with RISP at this point, and frustration was mounting.

At some point though, things have to start falling in. No one is going to lose out from August 31st onward, no matter how much that would benefit our draft position next year. If you continue to get runners on base and have people bat in high leverage, somewhere between ¹⁄₄ and ¹⁄₃ of the time, hits will happen.

It seems that all of those hits took place in the 8th inning, when Ryan Brasier relieved Matt Barnes and turned in a performance truly worthy of a former Halos pitching prospect. Serving up 3 consecutive singles to tie the game, he would then get two consecutive outs. Conveniently, no appearance is worthy of the name “meltdown” without such a situation.

David Fletcher hit his 30th double of the season on an elevated pitch to drive in the go ahead run. After Trout’s intentional walk to load the bases, Goodwin then continued to absolutely wreck the Red Sox with a 2-run knock. Brasier held back the waterworks as he walked off the mound, but the Pujols 3-run jimmy jack that followed likely broke the dam off camera.

In other news, Trout became the youngest player to ever make it to the 200-200 club, Pujols had the 17th 20-bomb season of his career, and MVP “candidate” Rafael Devers has gone 0-11 in the first two games of this series.

It seems that the Angels had their best non-Heaney day in a while, so that’s good.

We now return to your regularly scheduled tankathon.

Halos Heaven Radio - Week 22 in Review: Taylor Cole and True Heroism

2019-08-27T08:00:00-07:00

Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Tanking life one day at a time

Rick, Rahul, and Jeffrey Any% Speedrun the Good, Bad, and Meh to talk for half an hour about random opinions.

As always, you can find us here:

Angels fight the Houston dragon valiantly, but courage alone can’t save them

2019-08-25T17:28:47-07:00

Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images

Astros 11 Angels 2

Fuedal lords, unfazed and deaf to the plight of the dissatisfied serfs.

A brave battalion of doomed knights, resigned to their fates.

A beast of legend atop immeasurable wealth with no end in sight.

We’ve all seen this countless times before. For us then to be surprised when the monster utterly cripples our forces, putting the entire kingdom in dire straits with not so much as a raised eyebrow from the leadership is... well, it ain’t good.

Yet, here we are, genuinely feeling some type of way after being outscored by 9 runs with Framber Valdez on the mound. Yes, it is true that Valdez has the threat level of about a Komodo compared to the draconic kin in the rotation, but have you ever seen one in person? What it lacks in terrifying size, it makes up for in its accessories.

And those accessories shredded, singed, envenomated, and mauled the poor souls sent out today. One knight, Sir Taylor Cole, was so beyond recognition by the end of the massacre that only his season FIP of 3.38 (it was 2.98 before the battle) still somewhat resembled that of a human being.

Casualties abound, only Brian Goodwin, and Andrelton Simmons seemed to return mostly unscathed (if at all). You might say they lived to fight another day—or 7, but it is only a matter of time before their fates, too, are sealed.

We continue to endure the demoralizing and heartbreaking fall of our representatives while our farm(s) yield no crops, and the oligarchy above continues to hoard their riches. How much longer? Have we not suffered enough?

The Dragons of the West must be stopped, but nary a sound nor movement from the powers that be has so much as suggested that the end of our torment is near. If this silence should continue, the nobility can expect to pay dearly.

Angels @ Astros 08/25/2019 Just 8 more against Houston Gamethread

2019-08-25T09:32:58-07:00

Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images

Jaime Barria and Framber Valdez match up.

Us rn, wondering where our season went:

Andrew Heaney wins half of double-header in grandiose fashion and the other game happened too

2019-08-20T21:09:03-07:00

Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

20 innings of baseball amounted to nothing gained and nothing lost

Angels 5 Rangers 1

Angels 2 Rangers 3

It isn’t easy to have the best game of your life when you already have a one-hit 1-0 shutout to your name. Andrew Heaney, however, arguably surpassed his career best by mowing down the Rangers at Globe Life time and time again.

The game began on a sweltering Tuesday afternoon to almost no fans whatsoever (I wouldn’t attend a game in the Death Valley of ballparks during the middle of August myself). This was the perfect kind of day for bomb-crushing, and Trout did so almost immediately. The 112 MPH liner to left was gone in virtually no time at all and it was all the support the starter would really need, though they would tack on 3 more runs.

Heandog was more than locked in. This was the makeup for the Tyler Skaggs postponement game, after all, and no one else could have been more perfect for the job. Heaney would strike out a career high 14 and walk 0. He allowed 4 hits across 8 innings and just 1 solo shot. It was as dominant as it gets and easily the second best game of the entire season for the pitching staff, edged of course by the Skaggs no-hitter.

The second game seemed to be a similarly well-pitched affair. Okay, it actually was. Barria didn’t go nearly as long or pitch even remotely as strongly as Heaney, but the Rangers were held to just 2 runs for a long time.

Shohei Ohtani and Brian Goodwin attempted to save the offense by tying the game late via RBI double and solo shot while Halo bats couldn’t seem to seal the deal in extras. In the 11th inning, the Rangers finally walked it off on an error by Pujols.

At the end of the day, all that really mattered came down to the following

Trout set a new career high in homers and seeks to have the coveted 50 bomb season
Heaney had one heckin’ heck of a game today

Halos Heaven Radio Episode 24 - Week 21 in Review: Old McArte Had a Farm

2019-08-20T09:00:00-07:00

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

E-I-E-I-OH-no

Jessica, Rahul, and Rick discuss the past week and preview the Rangers and Astros series. We only manage to go on a few small tangents and a special bonus this week - we spend a little time talking about the farm system!

As always, you can find us here: