Angels B Team loses to the Dodgers

Photo credit: Rex Fregosi

Well everybody, we fielded a lot of minor league guys in the line up today. There was no Trout. There was no Rendon. Pujols was batting third and Stassi was batting fifth.

The Angels side were out in the first on only 7 pitches. Then Julio Teheran gave up 3 runs in over 50 pitches in his part of the first inning. Nothing much happened until the third when Jo Adell hit a double and Jahmai Jones drove him in with a single.
Eliot Soto singled Jones over to second, Walsh tripled to drive in two, and Pujols hit a sacrifice to drive in another run. (4-3 Angels).

The Dodgers went ahead 5-4 on a Joc Pederson home run directly to a cutout area in the sixth inning to make it 5-4, whereupon there was an electrical power outage and Joe Kelly was brought in to face the Angels in the seventh inning. Here is an actual image of Dodger stadium in the seventh inning.

And now for the seventh inning stretch! Can the Angels win this meaningless game? They are only down by one. they bring in Hoby Milner to pitch. And Edwin Rios hit a home run that bounced over the fence right out of Jo Adell’s glove. 6-4 Dodgers. Ummm, never mind!

Will Smith added a home run off of Luke Bard to make it 7-4 in the bottom of the eighth. Yikes! The Angels have three outs to win this game.

Ninth Inning

  1. Jo Adell strikes out swinging. (1 out)
  2. Jahmai Jones reaches on an error by Edwin Rios.
  3. Soto hits a ground rule double. Jones must stop at third.
  4. Fletcher hits a line drive base hit to drive in two. (7-6)
  5. Infield hit by Walsh.
  6. Pujols hits a line drive to the outfield to advance Fletcher to third.
  7. Ohtani makes out on a come backer. Bummer!
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Fansince1971
Legend
3 years ago

Eppler was doomed to fail because he and the Angels refused to either commit to a rebuild or to go all-in for a championship. Instead they committed to nothing other than being ‘competitive’ year after year which provided 5 mediocre, middle-of- the-road seasons. And that provided draft picks outside the top-5 which are always crap-shoots.

Perhaps the biggest warning was the following quote from the press-conference when he was hired:

“With the position of this organization and the financial strengths of this organization, it’s not in the DNA here to rebuild,” Eppler said. “We’ll continue to invest. We’ll continue to invest throughout this season, with a mind for this season, with a mind for the future and this winter with a mind toward competing and contending year in and year out.”

That resulted in trading young pitching for Simba (a move we all loved but maybe not what the team needed) as well as bringing in players like Upton. The pitching cracks left by Weaver’s retirement became gaping holes that were never filled except with ineffective tar obtained off the waiver wire or overpriced free agents obtained on one year deals who did not perform.

It was the philosophy of staying ‘competitive’ season after season that ultimately doomed the Angels and Eppler. ‘Competitive’ became sub-500 but still good enough to finish around 10th-12th worst out of 30 which means the good pitching was gone from the draft.

Eppler failed – there is no doubt. But it was Arte’s desire to keep drawing 3 million (ie stay ‘competitive’) that left the team in the conundrum it is in.

Last edited 3 years ago by Fansince1971
admkir
Trusted Member
3 years ago

No gamethread

eyespy
Super Member
3 years ago
Reply to  admkir

Yes, where is the Gamethread? I pay good money for a Gamethread, and I want my damn Gamethread. We need to prevent the season sweep by thr Dodgers. The Lads need out help.

LETS GO HALOS!!!

Brent
Super Member
3 years ago

The sheer silence after Adell’s play by Victor and Gubi spoke volumes… just speechless, not even giving play by play for almost 4 pitches afterwards. I’m sure they were just dumbfounded by that happening again. trAdition, at its finest.

Guest
3 years ago

Going by stats only, ’cause I haven’t watched much this year.

Relievers to keep:
Mayers (this year’s surprise, please don’t be next year’s Robles)
Bedrosian (sorry Rick Soudress)
Noe Ram (relatively consistent over the past few years)

Spring invites, with poor performance trends:
Buttrey
Middleton
Pena

Release the rest. There will be a lot of non-tenders due to financial constraints this offseason. If Arte wants to win for Mikey (or anyone else), he’ll allow the new GM to hire a competent pitching talent evaluator.

If Mikey doesn’t go to the playoffs next year, he may waive his no trade clause. 10 years, no playoff wins. It matters to him.

Brent
Super Member
3 years ago
Reply to 

Middleton in an Angels uniform, with fans again in the stands, would not bode well for him.

Fansince1971
Legend
3 years ago

Here’s last night’s booboo. This was a much more difficult play. Would have been a very nice catch.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/j0kn62/edwin_rios_hits_a_home_run_that_goes_in_and_out/

Last edited 3 years ago by Fansince1971
JackFrost
Super Member
3 years ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

Well, that wasn’t really a hard catch. Any MLB player should make that.
In fact any decent college outfielder makes that play.

He didn’t really have to jump.. It comes down to focus and concentration, which he didn’t have.

He looks like a Little Leaguer out there. He really does.

admkir
Trusted Member
3 years ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

You have to see the replay from the Dodger site where they showed the replay up close of the non catch, Adell blows

Fansince1971
Legend
3 years ago
Reply to  admkir

I’ll check that out. I’m sure you guys are right.

Fansince1971
Legend
3 years ago

Adell has had one of the ugliest rookie seasons that I can recall from a top prospect. Compare him to a player like Tatis Jr and iit is downright embarrassing. Hopefully we look back and laugh at this time and talk about how important it was to his development.

Best thing is he is so young and has lots of time to figure things out.

Last edited 3 years ago by Fansince1971
admkir
Trusted Member
3 years ago

Todays throwaway game lineup has been posted

Eric_in_Portland
Legend
3 years ago
Reply to  admkir

no Trout again. So, .281 average. I sure hope he’s not going to lose 10 points off his average every season. Anyway, I think in 162 games his average would have gone up. He had a lot of hard hit balls that people caught.

Meanwhile we get Jam and Soto again, which is fine. And Ohtani and Adell, which is also fine. The Dodgers are throwing out some sub 2 ERA guy.

Can we catch Seattle for 3rd in the AL West? I hope so. It would look better.

admkir
Trusted Member
3 years ago

That Rios/Adell HR was so embarrassing that to show it to my wife the only place I could find it to show her was on the Dodgers site

Last edited 3 years ago by admkir
Mia
Legend
Mia
3 years ago

Man, I just feel really bad for Jo Adell.

JackFrost
Super Member
3 years ago
Reply to  Mia

Did another HR really go out of Adell’s glove over the wall?

I thought I hadnt refreshed the page on my iPhone and was reading the game recap from Aug 9th in Texas.

Last edited 3 years ago by JackFrost
PatrickNaN
Trusted Member
3 years ago
Reply to  JackFrost

Whoopsie!

You’d think that would be super hard, but apparently it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Nick_LA96
Member
3 years ago

The bright spots about this game were clearly the rookies, and fletcher of course. Though a small sample size I do hope Walsh has found his swing, same goes for Ward. Stassi (also a rather small sample size but most catchers are part time now anyways) was a bright spot for us for the first time in a long time at catcher this year.

2002heaven
Trusted Member
3 years ago
Reply to  Nick_LA96

Except that some of these guys are like Dennis Quaid…..Elliot Soto
That’s been Billy’s MO since day one ( and here we are in year five of his ordeal and he’s still doing it ). Might seem like a nice feel good real life against all odds Disney movie Billy’s got going on, but I’m tired of 28 yr old rookies here.

2002heaven
Trusted Member
3 years ago

Albert had a lousy night…..again! but clearly the pitching lost this game or us.
Teheran is yet another Eppler FA trainwreck. Jedi haters hate to break it to you but the Muhreeners are better than us and yes Jedi is way better than Eppler. Arte had to spend a ton to get Anthony Rendon otherwise were with the Pyritz. 😥  😫 

DMAGZ13
Trusted Member
3 years ago

Damn Mota making fun of the Adell’s actual glove.

MH252525
Trusted Member
3 years ago

So we can’t win with a 270 OBP guy hitting 3rd. Shocking. Just hang em up Albert. Thanks for the memories but if you play much more you are risking turning good memories into horrible ones.

FungoAle
Super Member
3 years ago
Reply to  MH252525

Front Office and Manager just needs to spell it out for Puljos in 2021…”limited to pinch hitting duties only.”

Fansince1971
Legend
3 years ago
Reply to  FungoAle

60 ABs – $500k per. That sounds just about right.

FungoAle
Super Member
3 years ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

Yeah, that cash was set ablaze 9 years ago.

eastbayhalo
Member
3 years ago
Reply to  FungoAle

But it seems like it burns with greater intensity each year.

PatrickNaN
Trusted Member
3 years ago
Reply to  eastbayhalo

It burns the brightest for me when we are asked to “celebrate” his career milestones.

No, I don’t care to celebrate that we are paying a guy about $30 million a year when he should have been out of baseball about 6 years ago, thus enabling him to hit milestones he never should have achieved by doing immense damage to the team.

PatrickNaN
Trusted Member
3 years ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

I would be happy to stand there and hope to draw a walk for like 1/10th that money if they want a bargain!

Last edited 3 years ago by PatrickNaN
admkir
Trusted Member
3 years ago
Reply to  FungoAle

1st you need to have a GM with enough cajones to stand up to Arte