Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Mike Trout had a mini-slump, took paternity leave, and is still in the hunt for a home run title. Mike Trout was nominated for the 2020 Roberto Clemente award. Meanwhile, David Fletcher has been placed on the ten day injured list. The Angels recalled Taylor Ward in a corresponding move. In case you missed the Wednesday night game, here is Jo Adell’s highlight reel catch to rob Tatis, Jr. Franklin Barreto joined the Angels, Jahmai Jones was optioned to the minors, and Ryan Buchter was designated for Assignment to make room for Barreto. Jose Salvador is the player to be named later in the Brian Goodwin trade.
News From Around Baseball
Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver has died at 75 from Lewy Body Dementia and COVID-19. Ben Heller of the Yankees was ejected Wednesday night for hitting Hunter Renfroe of the Rays on the leg with a pitch. Tensions between the two teams appear to date back at least as far as CC Sabathia plunking Jesus Sucre in 2018. Mike Brosseau had a pretty good revenge game. For those who enjoy videos of Astros misery, Jose Altuve appears to have racked himself sliding into third base. He will have an MRI on his right knee although I am not sure that stems from the same play.
July 7, 2018 Dodgers vs Angels 108 degrees at FP!!!!
Sunday’s game vs Astros might eclipse that!
Trouty will probably hit a couple out tonight in the warm rising air so the game could be very interesting. Bundy needs to pitch good, but the Asstros will still be missing a couple of big hitters tonight. Boy it would have been a fun night at the Big A tonight with the hot weather and the beer as the Asstros would have had the crowd in a tizzy with the cheaters in town. When you look back at the two 80-82 seasons that might have been 83-79 seasons then Sosh might still have a job.Well maybe…..
The lineup card has been made out. Shohei, batting cleanup, has the 4th highest batting average at .189.
Just looked it up, if that is not a “Tanking” line up, then l have never seen one. BTW those darn R/S are losing again with a much, much better lineup than ours, they are in this tanking playoff to win. I am glad that Joe is taking this serious.
Can’t argue with this take:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/zips-time-warp-albert-pujols/
Albert should read it.
I wonder….if he gets 2 more HRs this “season” would he retire? What would he come back for in 2021? His playing time would decrease further.
If the Angels offered him enough money he’d be gone. He has felt that ST.Louis has “real baseball fans” so the begs the question why not stay there with their offer? The money. Today we still Have Nelson Cruz acting like 25 instead of 40 with the bat, Cano is still playing (Odd how many players that played in Seattle put up giant numbers), Milwaukee still has there ‘roid user playing too. It’s all about the money.
He has thirty million reasons to come back next year.
surely they could readjust his post-career remuneration…oh yeah, your name’s not Shirley. Sorry.
Interesting, supports a couple of things does it not? One Albert is quite possibly older than stated and secondly that while in McGuire’s town learned quickly about steroid use. Not other baseball player ever put up the numbers he did so fast and that includes a lot of greats that played in the 2 hitting decades of the ’20’s & ’30’s. That would mean not Lou Gehrig, not Jimmy Foxx, Rogers Hornsby, not no one. If you should ever come across pictures of Albert arriving at Spring Training 2012 look at how gigantic the man was, then look at the pictures from 3 years later and he is considerably smaller. He can deny the use of PED just like Bonds, Clemens, Manny, Sosa et al but use he did until it frightened him and he had his money. Every single Roid user have one thing in common, “Show me the Money!’.
Umm, if he’s a user like you claim why is he no longer producing like Cruz or even Cano? That seems like a pretty irresponsible take and IMO Albert’s lack of production is more evidence against steroid use.
Read what l said, after becoming an Angel his use of steroids was either less or not at all. You may not agree with me, but no one in the history of the game has had a career like his and it would have to be a huge coincidence that he had his in the Steroid Era. We can agree that Mcguire, Sosa, ARod, Rafe, Mo Vaughn, Shawn Green, and countless others were users. So are we to believe that those putting up similar numbers do not use? Are we to believe that only those caught were the only users? Mike Piazza was the only catcher in history to put up his numbers in the Steroid Era and didn’t use? If a player would have had a season or two or even three of serious greatness then maybe he was clean, but if you believe you will not be caught because the game did not want to know and it meant millions of dollars to you, do you really believe the game only had a handful of users?
Mike Trout is putting up some pretty serious numbers. Do you think he is taking “supplements?”
He’s one of the best players in history. Of course no has had a career like his. Maybe Pujols did take steroids. Maybe Tim Salmon did. Maybe Shohei Ohtani currently does. Without evidence that he did, why bother with the speculation? You could name any player and throw out an unsupported accusation, but it doesn’t make it any more true.
“the 1.9 WAR that Vaughn put up in each of his seasons in Anaheim bested Pujols’ results in all but two of his years with the Angels.”
OUCH
The even worse thing for me personally is that for some unknown reason I thought this was the last year if Pujols contract. When I figured out it wasn’t a couple weeks ago I nearly cried. Its a nightmare that never ends.
Heal fast David as you are missed. Imagine that, Heaney is pitching like the pitcher he should of always been, good for him. Tonight we will have a real test, beating the Asstros is in our future. Sure glad that Taylor Ward is coming up, that will help.
Upton has been hitting the ball squarely. Good sign that he’s still a MLB level bat
Yeah, I suppose .333/.407/.625 over the past 14 days is pretty good.
But in some ways it just makes him more frustrating. He gives us hope that maybe next year he’ll be good again but he doesn’t seem to be able to stay consistent over a long period of time and when he slumps, he digs a hole at the bottom of the valley.
Gotta take the positives. We’ve got him for 2 more seasons so I hope that it’s a return to form. It would be a major boon if he was an above average bat that he was pre injury
Seaver passing is making me feel old…..
RIP Tom Terrific.
Angels starting pitching sucks! Padres have a stacked lineup and Clevinger is 4-0 vs the Angels. Eppler is an Idiot! Arte needs to sell the Angels!
Wait, we Won? What? A Shutout? Shut up! No Fletcher? Barreto is 1-0 as an Angels starter? He didn’t get a hit? Bunt off his head?
A Win… there goes the tanking. Angels can’t do anything right.