Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Angels News
Hooray for Mike Trout! The Angels claimed Jacob Rhame off waivers from the Mets. He is another velocity and spin rate guy who has a very high ERA. Julio Teheran is now on the ten day IL. There is no word as to why. Approximately ten Angels players have not been attending Summer Camp. The status of most is unknown, but Dillon Peters has strained an oblique muscle. Shohei Ohtani remains upbeat after struggling with his command in his first outing. I guess maybe the testing glitch was a one time screw up. Let’s hope so.
General Baseball News
Lots more players have tested positive for the coronavirus. Scott Kingery describes what it was like to be pretty sick with COVID-19. Phillies GM Matt Klentak gives us the lowdown on their slew of coronavirus positives. Send in your bids today if you want to purchase the Mets.
Opinion
Beyond the Box Score has a pretty negative article about whether the season is likely to happen. So does Fangraphs.
Completely off topic and fun fact.
Our new third baseman has been very busy. Anthony Rendon is the Speaker of the California Assembly.
Looks smaller without the beard
Really? That’s interesting,. I wonder if he has plans of going into politics in a big way after he retires?
Well, at least you managed a comment that wasn’t…
Karen 1 – “Information scares me. This could be bad. I have heard snippets of information from my chosen news rectums that make me so furrowed, much concerned. If you don’t wear a mask you’re stupid and an asshole who hates science.”
Stud Rumble Tits – “Nuh uh! My science will outscience your science! It says masks don’t prevent shit! I was watching True News Face Blast and they said Covid only kills the wimpy!”
Karen 2 – “Let me step in here and mock the perfectly legitimate complaints people have about wearing masks and compare their not wearing them to not caring if people die. I’ll also probably try to somehow insert Hitler into this comment at some point.”
Johnny Gnarr Gnarr – “I’m allowed to question whether all this pain in the ass is really worth it. I had tickets to see Five Finger Death Punch in May and…”
Karine – “I question your questions and think your non-compliance makes the intelligence of anything you say questionable.”
Stud Rumble Tits – “Covid 19 is communist!”
Sonny Soyboy – “I dunno, I kind of like all the rules and signs and stuff. I feel all snug and secured and it gives me a clearer picture of who is and isn’t a good person so I can feel better than them.”
Johnny Gnarr Gnarr – “Our society’s going to collapse because of you pussies. That’s why I’m having my left arm replaced with an AR 15.”
Karen 1 – “If you were as sciency as me you’d realize that wearing a mask is the new black until we get an immunization for this type of virus for the first time ever and pass it out to everyone…. and then see that it actually worked for real…. and then hope it works on future strains of these viruses….. I don’t care if half the country’s homeless by the time we pull this off cause I’m sciency as f***…..”
Johnny Gnarr Gnarr – “Yeah, well I’m gonna start a church on a freeway overpass and call it a protest!”
White Chocolate – “Oh yeah! We’re gonna protest in your church! F*** you dad! Minecraft IS A SPORT!”
Gitch, you’ve made my day! 😀
But yo gritch is still on his pettis….
Well, that’s just water under the bridge, I’m afraid.
That’s gonna be a bitch of a commute.
Miguel Galindo Mayans MC FX channel……lookalikes
Covid rates keep going up while death rates have gone down. This is mostly because younger folks are the ones primarily getting the disease. Still the long term impact of getting the disease is unknown – there are risks of stroke, cardiovascular disease, lung disease etc.
All of that is to say that I don’t think this season is likely to happen. Covid rates are soaring. We are approaching 100,000 known new infections each day. That means another approximately 1 million new cases before the season starts. And those are the known cases. Reality may be 10x of that.
I think many players are going to decide not to play. I’m almost certain Trout will make that decision since he will have his wife and newborn child to think about.
Even if we have a season it may turn out to be mostly lower level guys mixed in with those regular players who are willing to take a risk.
Something tells me Trout may be behind this:
Hopefully makes him, and everyone else, feel a bit safer.
I hope so Mia. I really hope Trout agrees to play because he is such a leader on the team. I would love to watch baseball – it seems like such a luxury!
The article that mentions the very low Covid rates in Korea and New Zealand (two countries that continually and frequently test) is proof that you can have an open economy as long as people have the discipline to wear masks and social distance. Why we cannot do that here is beyond me.
Definitely, if we want any shot at the playoffs in this weird season, we will need the GOAT. Can goats even get the virus? He may have nothing to worry about. 😉
My family in Korea has done nothing but laugh at us Americans for our inability to wear a mask. In places like Korea, Japan, China, it’s no big deal. They were wearing masks when sick long before COVID came along.
I’ve been wearing one anytime I leave my house since like the middle of March. Spoiler alert: I feel fine. I have even taken the pups on walks in excess of a mile or 2 and I’m fine 🙂
Yep – masks are the solution. But everyone needs to buy in and be disciplined. Unfortunately we don’t have a homogenous population that is willing to “sacrifice” for the public good.
I’m with you. Been wearing a mask in public since March and am doing fine (except for maybe mentally 😎 )
Hey sir, I have the freedom to not have my glasses fog up, thankyouverymuch.
3PO was right, we’re doomed.
A mask makes it hard for me to breathe – I have the right to breathe don’t I?! Sheeesh.
If everyone in the US wore a mask and socially distanced for a month, this would likely be over.
I think COVID may impede their ability to breathe just a bit more. Lol.
The mask wearing was why California’s numbers looked great early on, and then they said fuck it. It’s the key to re-opening safely until we have a vaccine. But people are idiots.
I’m not so sure it wasn’t safer to play games the last three months when the majority of the population was still taking this seriously.
Some otherwise intelligent people are just plain going stir crazy. I know a guy whose whole life revolved around going to movie theaters and eating out at restaurants. He’s been having a hard time.
That’s part of the reason I’d love it if baseball actually does come back for the 60 game season. Would be a nice diversion. I personally would watch every moment of every Angels game.
Just teach those people they can sow a pipe cleaner or other wire (you can remove one from a surgical mask) at the top and pinch it around their nose when they put the mask on – foggy-glasses problem solved!
We have a big box of the typical cummerbund-style disposable masks with wires in them. We got them at Food 4 Less. The ones without wires tend to migrate up into my eyes.
Looks like I have to bring some balance to the discussion again. It is nice to buy into the comforting myth that wearing the mask solves everything.
Problem is that scientifically this is far from a fact. A study by Xiao, J, Shiu EYC etc al found “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of surgical masks in the community, based on 10 randomized control trials.”
On the other had certain epidemiological evidence points to the usefulness of masks, especially early in a pandemic, and this is found when comparing COVID-19 cases in Taiwan to cases in Singapore. In Taiwan mask wearing was prevalent early in the pandemic and they had far fewer reported cases; (1.46 per 100,000 population) whereas Singapore had higher numbers (19.07 per 100,000 population). These numbers were as of April 3, 2020..
Taiwan had recommended the use of masks early on while Singapore had not.
On the other hand, most American studies show that the wearing of masks have marginal if any value, that is, they don’t reduce transmission. This is true of all masks except for the N95 mask, which has been proven to be effective.
So, unless everyone is wearing an N95, at least here in America, it seems the masks are not the simple solution that a lot of people here are ignorantly saying they are.
They are saying it can help
https://www.futurity.org/do-masks-work-coronavirus-transmission-2398752/
But any% is way better than zero%
Just be a good human being, and please wear a mask. Or be an entitled person ahead of the trends. Just think about only you, and wear a mask. Deh dah sexy an fash.
I’m reading we got four more years for the need of mask wearing, and isolating. Take deep breaths my fellow folks.
edit: some more info
https://www.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/news/your-mask-cuts-own-risk-65-percent/
If you believe this report, then yes, a 65% decrease is indeed better than nothing.
The problem is that many scientists are now saying that the coronavirus is airborn, thus it would not take coming in contact with “droplets” (created when somebody sneezes or coughs) in order to become infected.
In short, any mask with an opening for air to get in would be useless.
No mask would be useless, any mask would give you, and the others, any% chance of not transmitting it.
In reality. It’s all 50/50. What the experts “say”, is just that. Know one really knows at this point. The understanding changes everyday, like science does, and we don’t have much to go on except that wearing a mask does help. How much? Who knows, but they do not help spread germs. That we do know.
Just make an effort for yourself, and everyone. Take deep breaths.
The mask is more effective protecting others from the person wearing the mask than it is for protecting the person wearing the mask from others. If you sneeze into a mask, you are less likely to infect others than sneezing into open air. Is it 1% less likely, 65% less likely or 90% less likely? We don’t know and it doesn’t matter. As a health issue, a 0.00000001% reduced chance of infection is an improvement. Masks don’t become a political issue until masks are 0.0% effective.
Remember, nobody is asking people to wear masks when it might pose a health threat (such as exercising) or when there is no potential for interaction with others. You only need a mask when you do things where you might expose others to your germs, such as going to work or the grocery store.
Good points. It does not hurt us to wear a mask; it does no harm to the wearer, so we can look at it that way.
I simply was trying to be a little bit more accurate and factual than the people who are saying “it’s simple, just wear the damn mask and it solves everything.”
Well, no, it doesn’t. That is a fact. It does NOT by itself solve the problem.
But as you point out, it does not hurt to wear it either, so…….
It’s funny, no one said it solves everything. We know that when a significant portion of a population wear them it reduces case numbers.
Along with social distancing and stuff like sanitizing surfaces, washing your hands etc…it helps. I would venture to say a significant amount based on what i’ve read and heard.
Even if it is only effective in stopping positive people from spreading droplets, that’s a big deal.
We’ve seen new reporting that the droplets can hang in the air in closed spaces, so catching those droplets in a mask is a huuuge deal.
FanSince 71’ : “masks are the solution.”
That seems to be saying masks solve everything. I also seem to remember a couple more comments along those lines but don’t feel like back searching threads for more.
Look, I am not necessarily trying to be a contrarian here, but when folks are going to ridicule and stigmatize others then they should at least be accurate and factual in what they are saying, especially if they are making sweeping pronouncements.
Now you Mia, were closer to the truth here in what you said; by combining social distancing, hand washing and the mask you can effectively combat this.
That is a lot different than saying just wear the mask and you solve it, which has been scientifically proven to be false.
Thanks for the shout-out JackFrost!
I’ll address your attack. Masks and social distancing (and hand washing) are the best solutions we have at this point. That’s an accurate statement.
Look at Korea (where their population is compliant) – 51.5 million people and 44 new cases on Tuesday. That would be like 250 new cases in the US compared to what we actually recorded, 60,000.
Until there is a vaccine, a mask and social distancing (and hand washing) are the only ‘solution’ we have. Is it going to eliminate the virus – maybe, maybe not – but it will certainly dramatically slow the rate of infection. That’s a solution.
A ‘solution’ does not need to be 100% to be considered a solution. The word is defined as ‘an means of dealing with a difficult situation’.
With that definition, I will say it again and unabashedly- masks and social distancing are a solution.
Drunk drivers have rights too dammit! if you don’t believe it just ask one! All hail angry Trader Joe’s girl who refused to wear a mask……because her doctor said she has a breathing problem. However ranting and swearing doesn’t show her breathing difficulties too well.
Wearing a non-N95 mask doesn’t protect the wearer, but it prevents him from sputtering bodily fluids from his mouth and nose, which protects everybody else. This, combined with social distancing and keeping hands sanitary, goes a long way towards preventing the spread of disease.