The Angels went to Coors Field with an outside chance of claiming a playoff spot (only 4 games behind the Astros), as well a chance at the worst record in baseball (only 2 games away). It’s the story of a weird 2020 baseball season and team that can’t decide if they are good or not.
Your 30 seconds recap of this games looks like this: Jared Walsh is still hot, Justin Upton continues his resurgence, Mike Trout is still Trout, Shohei Ohtani still looks lost as the plate, the bullpen is still trash, and Griffin Canning did alright despite only throwing 59 strikes in 99 pitches.
Joe Maddon (or Billy Eppler) also still don’t believe position experience really matters and you can just pretty much play someone anywhere around the field. Can’t wait to see Simba play first base!! This is what happens when you aren’t familiar with your position:
Not a right fielder by trade, Taylor Ward also had this happen to him:
Not really Taylor Ward’s fault that time around – blame State Farm and stupid overhang at Coors Field.
As I had said, Canning was fine. He held the Rockies to just 3 runs and was one out shy of a quality start.
Jared Walsh, who has been swinging a hot bat, tied up the game with his 4th bomb of the year. Walsh has a .929 OPS on the season and over his last 8 games is batting .385.
This game entered the 9th all knotted up at 3 but enter Anthony BemBOOM with the go ahead blast.
Remember when Ty Buttrey was good? It’s not this year. He came in to save this game and blew his 4th save opportunity in 9 attempts. Can we stop pretending he can finish off close games?? It’s not just Buttrey – the Angels lead the league with 13 blown saves.
José Quijada followed Buttrey and he didn’t fare any better. After striking out Raimel Tapia, he walked Trevor Story to load the bases and then gave up grand slam to Charlie Blackmon
With this loss, the Angels are now 4.5 games out of a playoff spots and 2 GB from a 2021 first round draft pick.
(Cover Photo: Fabian Ardaya Twitter)
Fletcher leading off today. Yay!
Ohtani .189 BA really hurts. If you factor in Adell the Angeks had 4 players in the lineup batting under .200.
I was wondering where everyone at HH went. Here you are!
Good to see you!
I’m getting the feeling Pujols is either retiring or getting DFA’d after this season. Dude has barely played and I just saw they are working out Marsh at first base now.
That’s be such a dream come true!
I recall a Pujols interview from a year or two ago where he said he was going to play out his contract because he was a man of his word or something along similar lines.
Dudes not gonna leave 30 mil on the table no matter how embarrassing he gets. Angels are gonna have to eat yet another stupid contract.
He gets paid whether he plays or not. Only himself doing an announced retirement can change his being on the books. If released he gets paid. If injured he gets paid. If traded he gets paid except for $550,000 that the teaming receiving him gets. In other words by trading him to St Louis his money is still on the books. The only good thing that could happen is it opens a roster spot for someone.
Really missing Calhoun’s defense this year
Albert Pujols 660 Watch: Day Infinity.
“Yup tat sur whas sumting las nite……gotta luv tat bullpen, but et shore do schink, sumbodi should clean et out.”
Now we need to just set our mind on playing the bench full time and that might let us catch those Pirates.
Walsh coming through is a nice surprise and in the last 14 games keep him in there as l think he has a future.
l would love to see Trouty raise his BA to .325 and get the HR count up over 20.
The Fletch coming back would be nice, but only is 100% healthy, as lingering ankle issues are not the best thing to have to deal with.
All aboard, now boarding on track number six, plenty of room in the drawing car. Yes sirree everyday there are plenty of you getting on board with saying goodbye to Billy Eppler, the builder of the cheap pitching staffs.
Now if we just only remove from the owner down……how about Vice Presidents down?
Ward now has himself 4 multi hit games in a row. Good for him.
You heard it here first, I miss Noodles, for real.
Correction please, Ward achieved no success in his bid for 2 hits last night.
On the plus side, Trout at .303. Hope he goes nuts tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TfporTfpUA
Well that 5 game winning streak was fun, 1-3 since
I’m so happy to see Walsh finally finding his swing. Ward doesn’t look bad offensively speaking, though I hope he finds his power stroke. Walsh definitely looks like he could be our 1B for the foreseeable future
Now I’m full on rooting for the Mariners to catch the Astros
I’m all in on rooting for bad things to happen to the Astros. The Mariners catching them is fine with me.
13 Blown Saves.
3 we came back and won.
If the 10 left were cut in half, we’d be in a playoff spot, with room to spare.
I’ve officially given up on Eppler.
This probably assures him job security for five more years.
I agree with this. I think Billy and his team have failed completely from a pitching standpoint- particularly the bullpen. He has to go. And I was one of his biggest supporters.
He’s only on year 5 of his 15 year rebuilding plan. Give it time. We need to draft a few more toolsy high school outfielders and we’ll be fine!
Trade for Matt Harvey! He’s a bullpen guy. We got this!
That’s a great idea, but I really wouldn’t give him more than 9 or 10 million this time around.
Ouch, I had not put that together but I think you have a point.
We just gave up a WOGS to Sharlito Copley 😣 😆
Well, at least it’s almost over.
Almost over as in the season or as in any hope of winning during Trout’s prime years?
Crazy we went from mid-Pandemic “please! any baseball to watch is good!” to “please make it stop!”
Whoever pitcher that was pointing at the ball as if it was catchable was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on a diamond. No dude, that wasn’t catchable, you just gave up a walk off grand slam. Jesus…
ahh brings bitter memories… I remember 2008 ALDS game 2 again the Red Sux.. K-Rod did the same thing pointing up when JD Drew hit the ball and of course it ended up over the wall… WELP
I also remember when Hansel Robles used to good…..Last Season.
Maybe Covid 19 destroyed this team like it did the economy. 😣 😥 Mike Trout and Taylor Ward in the 3rd inning……WTF!!! The outfield defense this season has been deplorable.
This bullpen is disgusting. Pathetic.
Explain how you throw balls in a tie game bases loaded bottom 9th.
By not being a good pitcher? When they brought in Quijada I told my son “ uh oh, this isn’t going to go well”
Fuck this team man
September