Spring Training is here, and the first game is in the books!
Angels scored first in the second thanks to a Rengifo double, a sac fly by Ward, and a single by Bemboom. 2-0. The next inning was good for the Angels as well, with a bases loaded walk and a double play that resulted in a run. 4-0 Angels.
The Giants did not just lay down and die, and scored as well due to wild Angels pitching and bad Angels defense. Jo Adell and balls to the outfield made it 4-2 Angels in the 3rd.
The 7th was a wild Giants inning as they pitched like the Angels. Bases loaded walk made it 5-2 Halos with the first out being a strikeout on being a bit too passive out there. Another strikeout and it was down to the last out, except no. The Giants used the new Manfred rule to get out of the inning with 2 outs. Boo.
Thomas Pannone closed the game out and secured the victory for the Angels. Angels win their first game of the spring with only 2 hits allowed!
Pitching
Jose Quintana was the first Angel to start this spring and he debuted like we all expected. Wild. After a hit by pitch and a walk, things were looking bad for our new Starting Pitcher. Sure, this was Spring Training, so it did not count, but first impressions. Then he had 3 straight flyouts to end the inning with no damage, making this a scary Angels outing rather than a bad one. Welcome to the Angels!
Patrick Sandoval was up next in the second. After a flyout and a strikeout, he looked to be done with few pitches, but a walk and a wild pitch and things were trouble fast. 2 outs troubles struck. Then he calmed down and got a strikeout to end the inning at 24 pitches. Another typical Angels outing.
Gerardo Reyes was next. He did not pitch last year, and it showed. After a quick strikeout, he unraveled fast and did not make it out of the inning. However it wasn’t all his fault. Jo Adell literally fell down in the outfield, which made a maybe catchable ball a double. Then immediately after he looked to have tweaked something as he was pulled right away. Hope he is alright.
Jake Faria took over and allowed a flyout to result in a run. He then got the next guy out and out of the 3rd fast. He came out for the 4th and got 3 quick outs. 1 and 2/3 innings in 10 pitches. Not bad. Start this guy with a clean inning and he makes good use of the defense in this very small sample size.
Kyle Keller was in for the 5th, he got two quick outs but the third batter made him work. So much so that he drew a walk and Keller had to use 20 pitches to get out of the inning when it looked to be 10. Still decent.
Dillon peters in for the 6th, two quick outs as he tried to prove others wrong. Then he had some trouble getting a third out. Typical. He didn’t allow any runs to score though.
Hitting
David Fletcher got leadoff today and he showed that he will certainly have that for the regular season with two walks. He was patient, not swinging at the Giants wild pitching.
Luis Rengifo was good today, getting a double, a walk, a run scored, and an RBI. He won’t be the starting shortstop to start the season but if he does this, maybe we won’t worry when he gets playing time.
Matt Thaiss was not as impressive. His most impressive play was reaching on an error, only to get thrown out stealing second. First base is no longer his and he needs to impress to make it any team at this point.
Juan Lagares impressed with a Willie Mays lite catch in centerfield. He also had a hit and a run scored. The fight for 4th outfielder is fierce, so anything can be made huge in spring.
Jo Adell GiDP and overall did not look good, especially in right field. Adams and Marsh made brief appearances and looked more ready than him. Especially Marsh, as his beard was magnificent.
Anthony Bemboom got an RBI and between him and Juan Graterol, they had two hits and called a good game. A 2 hitter between them.
Coming up
The Next Angels broadcast will be vs the White Sox Tomorrow. Angels fans will be in the stands as the Angels make their home debut.
Even with two outs yups the pitching was still on, now that’s good news. The fielding was better than what you’d expect for the first game of Spring, that’s good. Add in the 8 walks was a good sign too. I like the start a lot to. We saw a couple of pitchers instead of caving holding it together and finishing their inning out like Major Leaguer should. But most of all real Angels Baseball has returned and that’s what was most fun for us all. Go Halos!
LIGHT UP THE CACTUS!!!!
Good Spring Training winning sign, good find.
Looks like a BIG middle finger to me. Here’s to the Astros!
Forgot what time the game started and was in the car trekking to Homely Depot. Nice to hear Terry’s voice again. Nice to have Fletcher exercising his eagle eye, too.
I think I am as excited about Marsh’s beard as much as anything this season. I am psyched to root for that beard and maybe even growing one as a show of support. It is way better than any Red Sox beard I can recall.
I only caught 15 minutes but it included Adell stumbling over himself in RF. It’s almost like he has the yips in the field from clenching and trying not to screw up.
I really love his makeup and ceiling but man he just needs to disappear into AAA for a few months to normalize. It’s like the pressure of the hype and being on the doorstep of the bigs has him over-thinking literally every opportunity and not just reacting/playing.
Angels don’t need him this year, that is the attitude there organization must take. Just give him time, no other choice.
Adell definitely is struggling to handle the big show. But does he know that? I thought he seemed self aware… but clearly not doing the little things. You can’t be a star without starting at the little things. I don’t know a lot about Adell’s life, but maybe he didn’t grow up playing ball since a kid. There’s not a lot of natural instincts, just athlete and learned stuff. He needs to really focus and train if he wants to make it.
Maybe focusing too much time on his athleticism, his brand and his foundation and not enough on his fundamentals?
I think so. I don’t think he’s a bad person , but he’s not going to have his platform from AAA or has a replacement level player with a cup of coffee in the majors. The game has to come first.
I think we are overthinking it. His Brand? His foundation? I seriously doubt those are as big a distraction as they are for bigger players with actual brands, etc. He also just doesn’t seem very “Post Malone”. I knw he played ball through high school, he’s not a converted basketball player or something and he looked pretty good in the OF until last year. All this “not sure he’s a baseball player” talk is f*** ridiculous old man BS. He’s a fine ball player and everyone thought so till last season.
He just plain got his ass handed to him last year and he has the yips like ihh3.0 said. If the Angels are smart they’ll let him play a little early, then give him a big hug and send him to the MiLB camp and tell him to relax, go tear it up, and they’ll see him later this year. He needs to just go hide in Salt Lake and play many innings till he gets his feet back under him. He looks terrible, the type of extreme terrible that only comes from being completely fouled up mentally, and he needs to just go let his body be good at baseball again so his brain can get out of the way and reset itself. I’ve seen the same thing many times in sports, music, etc. He just looks totally jammed up and anxious and I wouldn’t judge him on these performances just like I wouldn’t judge a good drummer on his first crack at playing Frank Zappa stuff live with minimal rehearsals.
Over thinking this? Well I know its not me then. It’s probably Big Brain Brad. Yeah thats it. I’ll blame Ausmus . Aren’t we still paying him anyways?
BBB was 2019 not Covid 2020
Maddy was the new field manager……..JA may turn out to be one of many sitting in a outhouse and falling through ( 2016-2020 ). Still waiting on Kevin Maitan too. 😖
I know we paid Brad last year…. this year not sure, don’t want to look it up.
Didn’t he have a 3 year deal?
Today’s slip seemed pretty flukey. Wouldn’t be surprised if there was some moisture there in the shade.
The kid keeps smiling and fighting through it. I think some AAA time will do him wonders. Let him just play for a while, get some confidence and swagger.
i love JO as much as anyone but his social media game is way ahead of his baseball.
i don’t think its a good look to be offering such a swaggy Insta brand while at the same time not doing much above AA ball.
Maybe i’m old and so i don’t understand the norms for Gen Z, but i’m at the point where i’d like to see more hits, triples, HRS and OF defense from him now and less about the Scottsdale restaurant scene
He was endorsed by Adidas as a hyped prospect so the social media activity may very well be something he *has* to do.
I’m not worried about that stuff because he seems to be working very hard…there’s just some stuff that can only come from in-game experience and he just needs more of it to let the nerves dissipate.
Yeah. His Insta thing is just not that busy. It’s just busy compared to a 45 year old white guy. His posts are the type that take 30 seconds to do most of the time accept a few I’ve seen that were obviously not put together by him. He’s not sucking because he posts about his dinner at night. He’s sucking because he’s a mess, but he’s a mess who is in his 20s and still eats dinner.
This guy was the #2 prospect a year ago. He’ll bounce back with time unless he is just plain a crazy bust or he was totally broken by 2020.
JJ…..what the hell?
What if he’s Brandon Wood the sequel? Do you think the Oakland A’s can fix him? JA was the athletism project that was mentioned in the Moneyball book ( Why do small market teams keep taking big risks on guys with tools? ). I still gotta give him the benefit of the doubt because of his young age, but I’m starting to have my doubts about his ability to hit major league pitching.
Yup. In fact, we should doubt any prospect’s ability to hit MLB pitching until they actually do it cause plenty of them never really get good at it. Just ask Dustin Ackley and Desmond Jennings.
Jo looked like a solid fielder with a long swing when I saw him in ST in 19. The glove shouldn’t just fall off a cliff. Adjusting to RF is clearly taking him some time.
I’ve always been concerned about the long swing. So have many talent evaluators. My point is that yesterday’s slip seemed funky to me, like a fighter slipping on some water in a corner, not like a guy who simply lost control of his body and fell.
It looks like all 3 of Billy’s deadline deals last year have suffered major injuries since their acquisition ( Naughton, Barreto & now Reyes) is this just a bad coincidence?
Yes. No. Maybe? I blame Arte.
Blame Dipoto…….it still works with this blog base. 😆
I agree that it is a very weird coincidence – but I do not think there is more to it than coincidence. Maybe they were available at the deadline due to injury concerns? I am hard pressed to blame anyone other than their elbows. That said, this is definitely the kind of thing on which a conspiracy theory could be based.
Don’t many teams now employ proprietary metrics that predict injury risk? Maybe most all the other clubs we trade with do so they just send us their ticking time bombs.
They certainly should apply such injury predicting metrics. However, all three of these acquisitions would have been questionable using any form of injury metrics. Reyes was oft-injured with a promising career that was plagued by injuries. So, its not much of a surprise that he was again injured. Barreto has also been injury plagued as has Naughton. Its not like these guys had relatively injury free careers. They were on the other side of that spectrum so that is probably the common factor. Acquiring that type of player is a risk which clearly did not pay off here. Teams are probably more willing to trade such a player, regardless of the upside, due to the injury risk. I think Billy was a bit of a gambler in this regard.
The thing that bothers me is that Barreto was the return for La Stella. I would feel a lot better if La Stella was on this team – he would add nice depth to the infield.
I figure cheap Arte saved only about $400K trading away LaStella for a AAAA player on his last strand of rope. I doubt the Angels would have resigned Tommy ( he got 18 million/ 3years from the Gigantes) but what a waste of a trade.
I think the LA Stella trade was all Maddon and we got what we could for him because he wasn’t getting a new contract from us and everyone in the MLB knew it.
Yeah, sure seems that way. With his contact skills, seemed like a nice guy to have on the roster and he had some versatility. I recognize the defense concerns.
I’m not sure Maddon was the egomaniacal force behind the La Stella trade. I know they had the incident when La Stella temporarily refused his minor league assignment back in the Cubbie days but listening to Joe he sung a lot of La Stella praises. If I recall La Stella was invited came to one of Joe’s off-season charity events even after the trade to the Angels so that doesn’t sound like someone who secretly plotting his exodus.
Considering what Tommy got from the Giants, there was no way PTP was going to spend that kind of money on a utility player this year so this discussion is purely academic.
I don’t think it was a cabal attack on Tommy…. I’m not one of the guys on this site who always has to see the nefarious and dark hand of The Man in everything all the time. I just think Billy asked Joe if he was going to really want La Stella back in 2021, to the point that they’d have to pay him, and Joe said nah, so they traded him. Trouble is just about every team knew Joe didn’t love Tommy enough to want him paid, so we got back meh. We got what we wanted from Tommy. A valuable player for next to no money for a couple seasons. It was still a win.
Great to see baseball again. I’ve been intrigued by Reyes lately, kind of forgot about him over the weekend. Elbow discomfort is not a good sign around these parts.
I don’t think we will see him again.
Yes we will. He’ll probably end up getting a World Series Share with the Padres in 2023
Tomorrow is score early and hang on as the game is scheduled for 5 innings
Can’t blow it in the late innings if there are no late innings. *taps forehead*
But why blow leads if you get blown out?
Don’t get too excited
Practice? No that was last year. Those I nteesquad games. These are… Advanced practices.
There has to be an Allen Iverson gif to complement this.
Yep!
Example a million and one of why Mia rocks.
Well she is in Colorado. You know, the Rockies
❤️