Rangers 7, Angels 1
Lance Lynn wasn’t moved at the trade deadline, but perhaps the Angels wish he had been. Lynn, 33, is putting up what may be his finest statistical season, and the Angels were victims Tuesday evening.
It was his wildness that hurt the Angels the most. Lynn led the Majors in wild pitches in 2019, and he uncorked three stray ones that hit Los Angeles hitters early, including Justin Upton twice. The second one forced Upton, the team’s hottest hitter, out of the game early.
Here’s the HBP that took Justin Upton out of the game. Looks like it got him on the left hand #Angels pic.twitter.com/DCBra3CXF7
— Jared Tims (@Jared_Tims) September 9, 2020
Matt Thaiss was recalled before the game and slotted into the lineup in the second spot and at second base. Considering Thaiss hadn’t previously shown much offensive prowess and had never played a professional game at second, this was a bold move. He arrived with a revamped swing:
Matt Thaiss’ swing/setup looks…different. pic.twitter.com/DHz0YuMS7b
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) September 9, 2020
(I do happen to like the new swing, as it looks like he has more uppercut and bat speed. It didn’t translate to success Tuesday.)
Thaiss didn’t have a good game defensively either. An Elvis Andrus solo shot put the Rangers up early, and Max Stassi failed to cash in a runner on third with less than two outs shortly thereafter. Then, this happened:
It turns out that it’s pretty difficult to learn an entirely new position for the first time at the MLB level. pic.twitter.com/m3YDz9CWq9
— Brent Maguire (@bmags94) September 9, 2020
The Angels never really recovered after this moment, and although Andrew Heaney pitched decently well, with the scoreline 5-1 after five, he was pulled for the vaunted Angels bullpen.
Jared Walsh added a nice opposite-field home run, but other than that, the offense was not alive.
Awfully impressive opposite-field power from Jared Walsh pic.twitter.com/nYJvAl3Mbt
— Brent Maguire (@bmags94) September 9, 2020
It was a missed opportunity to pick up a game on the New York Yankees and (possibly, as the Astros have another game) the Houston Astros, who both lost earlier.
Looks like the first round pick for The Angels in 2021 will be a “toolsy, best athlete available”. Then we can hear how we can flip this “best athlete available” for pitching, which never seems to happen unless you are referring to the collection of bullpen arms.
…and we’ll attach him to a salary dump trade in 2022
after 2022 our SS has to be our best player just like this guy…….or like Cal Ripken, Ernie Banks, or Robin Yount.
not gonna mention A-Rod or Jeter and let you guys go a haters tangent. This is the new most important position in MLB ( like QB in FB )and we have to get with the program of being more competitive and not just casually entertaining. 👍
but why
Out of the 30 teams how many have “the latest” type of SS.? The group coming up in the fall of ’21 will be Story, Lindor, Seager, Baez, Correa, Bogaerts. One is not a great fielder (Boggie), 2 are great fielders (Story, Lindor) 2 are injury prone (Seager, Correa). All will cost 25 mil per and up. So to have Simmons for say between 12-14 mil per and still have hit, run and throw where is the issue of keeping up with the “Jones”. Now that leaves us wiggle room for pitching. l would like to have Baez or Story or Lindor, but not at the expense of pitching. This next off season there will be possibly only 2 very good SS and one l’d bet would like to stay putand boy can he field and the other is not a good fielder. (Mental block but he was a Yankee now in Phil.) As soon as l hit Post Comment his name will come to me. Point is pitching is made better by fielding as pointed out last night by Thaiss’ error. We have hitting and do not need a SS right now. A catcher we need and the big Get is coming up very soon. But even with no name catchers we still will need pitching regardless of what Billy Eppler and Arte Moreno think.
When was the last time this organization produced a very good let alone a great pitcher?
Jered Weaver is approaching 20 yrs since he was drafted. David Fletcher is a 2B not a LF, 3B or SS without much power, but he makes plays and is a good high average hitter and gets on base. The problem is CTPG nation wants 2014 all over again ( put out fires, patch up cracks in the dike and use FA to never get better in our farm system. ). This team will not absolutely sign a big dollar FA pitcher ( nobody actually thought we were gonna sign Gerrit Cole did you? ). We got a buffoon as GM who can’t draft, evaluate talent or develop it and sucks as a wheeler & dealer kind of GM too.
Today’s game according to the analytics and the numbers guys is to wait for the long ball and score 3 runs at a time. Rob Manfred has decided to embrace this as a course of action and has given us the Super Ball. All of this along with WAR and shifts has changed the Game but not for the better as prior to Covid-19 the TV rating were down, radio listenership was down and attendance continues to slide. But having a strong “D” and solid Bullpen and BARISP (meaning the unimportant RBI) while playing small ball does and will win games. We have the making of a decent team except for Catching and Pitching especially Bullpen Pitchers. We may have ourselves the real deal in Walsh, Adell may learn how to play the game just yet. But putting another 25-30 million dollars or more into the SS position is not going to help. With having “Cap Space” is essential to winning too. We can achieve getting pitching by making trades for it too, not just FA.’s. Long Ball does not win anymore games than playing Baseball 101 as there are many more aspects to the game.As far as the GM position goes it does not or should stop just there. From the owner’s way of influence to finding real “Baseball” people to run the team who know what they are doing on down to the GM is very needed and important change that should be coming. It’s the definition of stupid doing the same thing year after year and having the same results.
You outta know by now my opinion on WAR and the over-reliance on data and stats.
Which is why I’m adamant about the next GM, if and when Arte decides to quit being a cheap coward and get a more traditional baseball scouting and talent evaluation man in here and lose the analytics bullshit. If Arte did that he could turn this disaster around in 4 yrs! Paul DePodesta is a fraud and every place he’s worked at has gotten along just fine without him……Cleveland Indians, Oakland A’s, and the Dodgers. Analytics has no place in scouting and young raw talent evaluation only in veteran FA.
Would be cool to visit the universe where Thaiss at 2B is a good idea.
😄
Looking at the standings it appears we absolutely need to get to .500 to make the playoffs, which means finishing 13-4. That’s possible. It might not be sustainable but over that span we could win that many. At 30-30 there’s a reasonable chance. Or, conversely, we could finish 4-13 at 21-39. That would put us at .350. Unfortunately there are currently 4 teams worse than that and another, Pittsburgh, at .350 right now. Speaking of Pittsburgh, they seem to be blowing it, too. Just several days ago the Pirates and Angels were locked in that Rocker battle. Now both teams are “too good”.
Anyway, it appears that the winning streak has really jeopardized our chances of the #1 or #2 picks. Even tanking badly might not get us low enough. …unless we go 3-14. That might be the only way. Or 2-15.
Realistically we’ll go 7-10 and finish at 24-36. I think I predicted that. Do we have archives here? That’ll likely get us the 7th pick unless Manfred decrees that Boston gets the first 5 and the Skanks the next 5. He might do that!
I remember the Pyritz kicking our butts last summer head to head.
We were supposed to get fat off all these bad teams. 😣
We beat a Astros team without Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, Justin Verlander and we didn’t face Zack Greinke either.
BUT WE’LL TAKE WHAT WE CAN GET!! 😁
Our seasons always nosedive in Arlington.
At least we can nosedive in A/C now!
It’s the little things.
Speaking of AC – did you get snow yesterday? #coloradosAC
We definitely got a good dusting! First time I’ve watched live baseball with snow coming down outside. I’m watching all the heatwave/fire drama in California on Twitter and I’m sitting here at 32 degrees. Fun times.
Gosh dang it, why can we not beat the freaking Rangers?!
No Barreto starting =No Angels Win…
Another guy BE overlooked or felt wasn’t warranted ( gave Matt Harvey $11M in 2019 ) 😆 😣
Nice job…..Billy. The fat ugly guy who kinda resembles Larry The Cable Guy outpitched the good looking Josh Hartnett resemblance Andrew Heaney. 😆
He didn’t have enough spin rate and Harve did, spin rate is everything just ask Wilbur Wood or Hoyt Wilhelm.
ask mia whose better looking Lance Lynn or Andrew Heaney….LOL!!!
Fat ugly guys are usually Dodger killers BTW….
According to the box score, Lynn.
Y’know, the thing that matters.
My fault, apologies.
Naturally
Overreact as in: “We won 5 games in row – we’re going to make the playoffs!!!!!!!!!!”
I saw Fletch taking swings. Hope is still alive.
I saw “The Machine” taking batting practice without the aid of his walker.
Yes!