It’s saying something when the most exciting part of the broadcast was probably the lone fan standing outside the stadium, banging a trash can.
This game was “close” and technically the team always did have a shot at winning it, but it never felt that way. It also dragged on forever, with a four-plus hour run-time, with a franchise record for a nine-inning contest, featuring 19 walks.
Matt Andriese got the start but faltered early, failing to get out of the second inning. Houston did it without a home run, as Kyle Tucker drove in two with a double, and a walk and force out each forced in an additional run. When Andriese left the game after hitting Alex Bregman (the pitch only slightly grazing him), the Astros had a four-spot.
It seems relevant to bring up the fact that the Angels bullpen seems to have no rhyme or reason to its usage. We know that Hansel Robles is going to come in during save situations, but at any other moment, we must play whack-a-mole—any of the merry band of men may appear to toy with our hearts. Today, Cam Bedrosian, in my opinion one of the better relievers out of the pen, came in the second inning in this erstwhile 4-0 game despite not getting work in much higher leverage situations. Go figure. The Angels ended up using nine pitchers. I wasn’t confident in any one of them.
The Angels performed admirably offensively, but they left so many runs on the board. In the third inning, after success from David Fletcher, Brian Goodwin, and Anthony Rendon, the trio of Shohei Ohtani, Justin Upton, and Luis Rengifo failed to cash in any more runs than the one already earned.
After Michael Hermosillo demonstrated that he cannot get behind a fly ball in order to prevent runners from advancing (this happened twice on sacrifice flies), Jason Castro and Fletcher doubled in the fourth inning, before Goodwin smacked a home run. Goodwin currently has a 1.472 OPS.
Keynan Middleton, coming off some interesting Twitter spats, allowed one run in his inning of work, but the Angels were still in it, only down 6-4 at this point. Joe Maddon had the intriguing idea to bring in Jared Walsh for the aforementioned Hermosillo, moving Goodwin to center, Fletcher to right, Rengifo to short, and La Stella to second. After this point, Rengifo and La Stella committed errors, and Fletcher had a “single” bounce off his glove and fall to the field. Fun!
Jose Altuve was hit by Noé Ramirez, and he was caught stealing right after that.
The combination of Hoby Milner and Mike Mayers was worth a solid two runs for the Astros in the seventh. It was the beginning of the end.
The Angels had runners on the corners with one out in both the seventh and eighth innings but grounded into double plays to kill both rallies. After Houston added another run in the ninth, the Angels mustered up a false rally but failed to score, and the long, long disaster finally ended.
Meanwhile, the Angels have the worst record in baseball. Kumar Rocker, anyone?
Every other GM sucks except Billy Eppler, I guess.
Can’t tank ( 2011-2013 Astros 3 straight 100 loss seasons ). Can’t get over conservative and keep your farm system intact yet never win the whole shebang ( 2013-2019 Dodgers ). Can”t over aggressively pursue pieces to win a championship outside the organization either…….trades & FA’s. 2018 Boston Red Sox. LMFAO!!!!! Honestly this just sounds so sour grapish. Already Joe Maddon’s a moron for not being able to turn our foul bullpen into the 2002 Championship one.
“We never tank”
Essential minor league staff fired, multiple times. Minor leagues not financed properly.
Who wants are sad pieces, and which ones they may want can’t be let go. I no friend with Scott.
Figure it out, someone does not care to win, because winning costs effort to make money.
Good News, FYI the Angels have not given up the most runs in MLB, no sir, we are not at the bottom (or top) of that list, that honor belongs to the Giants. l know what your thinking , we must be next then, and l will answer nope not true as thet trophy goes to Seattle. Well then we must be next right! Well if you thought that you are right.
Fletch is tied with 4 others for second place in hits with 12, Colby Lewis of the M’s is at 15 hits.
Are you a betting man or women, then take what odds you can today that the season won’t last as the odds are falling fast. The Commish Mannyfred is blaming the players for the outbreak of the virus and told them they need to do a better job of controlling it or he will shut ‘er down. I believe that on two of the teams it started with uniformed personnel, but the Commish is not to bright. If Mannyfred goes through with the suspension of the Doyers Jack the “The mowerman” thinking that he just mows players down on purpose then he really needs to examine the facts a little closer. Yo Commish H-E D-I-D-N-O-T-H-I-T-A-N-Y-O-N-E……oh and BTW,oops l’m sorry Commish, by the way he was not thrown out of the game. Nobody asks me but sometimes you just have to cut bait and start again. So saying goodbye is hard to do l am sure, just say goodbye to Albert ans JUp after this years debacle of what’s been referred to as a season.
I actually wouldn’t be mad if they cancel the season at this point.
Okay July sucked, can we have a better August?
Baby Trout has arrived
Hopefully healthy and all went went.
A Small Fry
No! He was supposed to come Monday! My sweet baby niece is coming Monday via scheduled c section and it was gonna be destiny her and baby boy Trout were born the same day. Stupid 2020. In all seriousness God bless the Trout family and this new joy . I have a 9.5 month old and he’s my everything
Wha a disastrous game. If it’s any consolidation, it doesn’t appear that this season will last very long and this ugly record will mean very little in the long run.
Not much consolation. Eppler has yet to prove he can put together a good pitching staff in his 5th attempt.
5+ wins, 16+ losses. That’s not a good record but rethinking this, we’re actually only 2-6 and 2 1/2 games out. I mean it’s fun to try to picture this as a full season but it’s not, it’s 60 games[1]. So only 2 1/2 out and we can overcome that[2].
Notes:
1. it’s likely the season will really by 11 games long, ending Monday.
2. We can’t.
This is seriously a hold my beer moment right? Somebody told billy it’s impossible to put a worse pitching staff together and he said challenge accepted
Another question will be, will Joe ever win a series as coach of the Angels
Okay let me see if I got this right, Kelly was not warned or ejected in the game against Asstros but was suspended for throwing at batters (not hitting them) by the comish. Our pitchers hit 2 batters last night without a warning or ejection, are we now waiting on suspensions from the comish? Also before you say it, yes I think it was Kelly’s mouth that really got him in trouble.
The only person on Earth that thinks Albert can still play baseball is Albert. Time to let it go. Upton needs to be Cozarted ASAP. I do want to see Trout and Rendon in the lineup together some more. That is the only thing keeping me from giving up on this season entirely and just letting the kids play to see what we have down the road.
I have to imagine that the call to keep Albert is coming from Moreno, not from Eppler. I personally think Eppler would have already cut bait if he could have.
If I could construct the “ideal” lineup with what we have available, I’d probably run out something like this:
2B Fletcher, CF Trout, 3B Rendon, DH Ohtani, LF Adell, 1B LaStella, RF Marsh, C Castro/Stassi, SS Simba
Cut bait with Pujols and Upton. Let the talented kids play the OF to see what we have. Next year, Fletcher can take over SS and Rengifo will play 2B. Thaiss can take over 1B (assuming LaStella departs).
Mostly good, but saying “Thaiss can take over 1B” is a big assumption. That is a very important position and to simply hand it over to an unproven would be reckless and stupid. Unless that unproven is a top flight prospect (which Thaiss is not) it does not make sense. I like Thaiss, and he has shown flashes of being possibly serviceable at the big league level. I just don’t know that he is an every day 1B at the MLB level.
Yeah – that part is debatable, but I do feel confident in that we can probably find someone to fill 1B. Or, if not, then maybe 1B will just be a source of weakness, but I’d still rather give him a shot than just keep rolling out Pujols. I do feel confident that Thaiss can outperform Pujols in terms of overall production (offense, defense, base running, etc), as the bar to beat that is really, really low.
Possibly a platoon between Thaiss and Pujols with Matt getting the majority of starts could work.
It’s funny because everyone always said (basically correctly), “there’s no harm in cutting Pujols! You’re paying him anyway!” and then the set of crazy, unique circumstances almost in a sense justified the Angels not cutting him because they won’t have to pay him as much this year.
Oh., I forgot; you have got to have Goodwin in that OF the way he’s playing now. Even when he comes back to earth he is looking like a very solid Major League OF’er and likely better than what Marsh would give (at least in the beginning of his career).
And now the slow, inevitable march towards hiring Dave Dombrowski to torch the farm system begins.
If we sit somewhere like 4-13 or something next week I really think we should just promote as many young guys like Adell and Marsh as possible to get a meaningful season of daily ABs and development in along with Ohtani figuring out his mechanics. Let Trout be with his son. Cut bait with Albert or let him retire.
Well the good news is that Destructo Dave can only make one or two trades before he’s emptied the farm.
yoo must not have thot about the tigers.
There isn’t one to torch……..LMFAO!!!! Other than Jo Adell and a few other OF’s, no pitching at all to speak of 5 YEARS LATER NO LESS!! Dave Dombrowski has his fingerprints on the 2003 WSC Florida Marlins, and 2006 and 2012 Detroit Tigers. All teams that were built on farm systems and great scouting, not the crap we’ve seen since 2016. As far as the 2018 Boston Red Sox goes, he did the job he was supposed to do and delivered on it and quit be all sour grapes over it. BILLY EPPLER IS DOWNRIGHT TERRIBLE AND HAS TO GO………I’M ALL IN ON GETTING DD OVER HERE YESTERDAY!!!
Everybody is saying “cut bait with Albert” like it is our decision. It’s not.
Does anybody really think Arte will do that? Look how the Scioscia situation played out — he stayed until the end of his contract. That is likely what will happen with Albert (unfortunately). I’d be pleased if Arte is willing to let Billy cut him, but I don’t see it.
God nooooooooo!!!!!!! No Dombrowski.
Fletch and Goody showed up, Billy busy checking out the waiver wire, Maddon glad he signed for 5 years, Pen pretty much throwing gas on the fire, bench weak, to much dead weight in the line up and a group of starters that are Bleh and fans that are shell shocked and disappointed. Yeah that just about sums it up pretty much. Now we need to see turnarounds by the whole team and this will a true test for Joe to show that he is special indeed and change the atmosphere in the clubhouse and the mindset of the team. Somebody work with Ohtani on watching the 3rd base coach.
Who gets 5 years as a manager, a con man. Maddon just asking for five, should have raised some red flags, but Arte luvs him some Arte things. Arte asked a few of his close, I remember your face, from the Diamond Club(had to wait til the third inning to do so, free passes haven’t been collected yet). What do you think of Joe Maddon? I like him, do you?
If a con man gets 5 years what does that make Sosh? He got 10 !!
The long con
Well, on the bright side, it’s early, and we can quickly make things up with a few wins strung together. On the not-so-bright side, though, is that the bullpen looks dreadful, and as long as we are forced to continue to play overpriced veterans (Pujols, Upton), it’ll continue to hurt our chances.
We are currently the worst team in baseball, which stinks. Trout and Rendon have placed together only twice, though, so maybe there’s still some room for optimism. FanGraphs still projects us finishing in a 3-way tie for 8th place in the AL, so there’s always that 😛
Wow, this is some bad shit. This team is legitimately worse than last year. I’m saving boxes to help Eppler pack.
He will call in sick
Also tennis, these postgame pics of the other team’s players are more horrifying that Rev’s “Bullpen Blows Heaneys W” pic
I try
On the Bright Side, it looks like the Astros don’t need trash cans vs the Angels…
Keynan makes it easy, and goes straight to the point of contact
Noe for POTG
They built me up there in the 9th
Oh yeah. FUCK 2020 (JULY)