As you may have observed, opposing teams cannot help gifting the Angels runs due to defensive miscues. We’ll take ’em! The Angels scored two runs in the second inning yesterday on a sacrifice fly by Jose Rojas. He’ll take ’em. Note how Rob Manfred cannot look directly at the greatness of Mike Trout in the picture above. That’s the face of baseball and Manfred apparently hates baseball.
MLB.com considers Jared Walsh to be the biggest surprise on the Angels so far this year. Maybe they weren’t paying attention last year. Walsh was one of the two guys who score on the Rojas sac fly (from second base). Justin Upton even scored from first base. LOL at Kansas City!
Anthony Rendon is on the 10 day injured list with a strained groin, (and not in a good way).
Links From Around Baseball
The Minnesota Twins canceled their game on Monday due to the latest police shooting of a black man in their neighborhood. It’s sort of a safety issue for them. There is a 7 PM curfew in Minneapolis at the moment. Aaron Hicks of the Yankees did not play on Monday, also because of the shooting of Daunte Wright. Aaron Boone said Hicks was hurting over the situation and his mind wouldn’t be on the game. I guess they both are “Aaron on the side of caution.”
J. D. Martinez became the fifth player to have three homerun games with three different teams.
It looks like all the teams in the MLB Draft League have their managers now.
MLB moved the 2021 non-waiver trade deadline up to July 30, 2021 so it wouldn’t fall on a weekend.
There’s a new Joe Kelly mural in Venice. I am curious to know why they did the shading on his arms but omitted to do the shading of his uniform folds.
Now For The Injuries
The Nationals reinstated three players from their COVID-19 IL and they designated Jonathan Lucroy for assignment.
Trevor Rosenthal had thoracic outlet surgery. He’s out for at least most of the season.
James Paxton has been recommended to have Tommy John surgery. He’s seeking a second opinion.
Jonathan Hernandez of the Rangers actually had Tommy John surgery.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Lookee here! There is a link directly under this sentence that goes directly to the CTPG Patreon account.
Said no one
We knew LF and RF were weaknesses. As such, the starters getting shelved cannot be that big of a hit. Upton sitting out is no big impact, rather have Ward or Schebler flank Trout. Lagares’s bat was hot in the spring but has not carried over to prime time. Jay is your typical low average hitting aging OF that nobody wanted but the Angels.
Would rather have Rengifo play 3rd. Mayfield’s bat is a wet newspaper. Need Anthony back ASAP.
Perry, keep working the trade market. Never be satisfied.
Yeah…. not sure why Jay and MAryfield are up and Ward/Schebler/Rengifo are waiting around.
That’s my big question too. Ward is too obvious of someone to call up by now that I really don’t get it. Is he hurt? Are they trying to make him a catcher again and want him to focus on that?
Jon Jay was called up? Why not Ward?
I completely agree with you. Ward would be a much better hitter than Jay. The only reason that I can even fathom is that Jay might (I emphasize might) be able to fake it in CF if it became necessary and I don’t think Ward could. With that said, if that’s the issue, then just call up Adell for now since the minor league season hasn’t started yet. Heck Schebler has a fairly recent history of playing some CF (24 games in 2019).
They needed a Supreme Court ruling.
I see what you did there.
Upton is now out with back stiffness. Enter John Jay
Why Jon Jay of all options?
I think he was on the taxi squad?
Yuck, seems like Ward or Schebler would have been better choices than Jay. I figured Jay would be cut after spring training, as bad as he played.
I agree. My guess is that the taxi squad stays in a pod of sorts training whereas the guys sent to the minors play against teams. That way Schebler, Ward, Marsh, Adell and company get actual games vs simulated?
I wish someone would have hacked the gps on that taxi and drove him to Wisconsin.
We could’ve blocked roads and put in other delays on waze too!
I’ll take that too.
Are the MILB guys playing at the alt site? I know the actual leagues are still off.
I read something about a schedule with the Diamondbacks’ alt site players.
What the fuuuuuuu
https://twitter.com/FabianArdaya/status/1382107810654134275
Pujols is back to clean up, ouch.
Fletch
Ohtani
Trout
Pujols
Walsh
Iglesias
Suzuki
Mayfield
Jay
That lineup is ROUGH. Oh my god.
We went from wanting a change in RF to having ones in LF, 3B, 1B, C as well as RF.
Y’all got any more of them starters?!
Welllll…. get the injuries out of the way early?
And, unlike the MFY a few years back, we won’t get any sympathy from the press.
Pujols in the 4 slot and Jay in the line up is a whole lot of yuck.
Gonna test tweet embeds:
https://twitter.com/FabianArdaya/status/1382091815336091650?s=20
Wow, don’t even need the embed code, just the tweet link.
how’d *that* happen? Good lord! Rendon on the IL, Stassi, Lagares too. Fowler gone for the year. Somehow none of the pitchers (knock on wood. Ouch!) have gone down yet.
How we battle through the next ten days will tell us a ton about this team.
Have to feel for Legares. The guy signed a minor league deal, balled out this Spring to make the club, finally gets a clear shot at playing time, and gets hurt.
That said, Ward also balled out this Spring and Schebler wasn’t far behind.
But we get Jon Jay.
Lagares now hits the IL too
The injury bug is starting to bite 😬
Stassi officially on 10 day IL now. Benboom time behind Suzuki
This hurts us since Stassi has been strong offensively as compared to Suzuki.
Wow. This is why you don’t celebrate prematurely.
Who has been celebrating prematurely?
A lot of people last week were talking playoffs, etc..
Lagares (still injured?) and Rojas are out of the lineup.
Walsh in RF, Mayfield at 3B, Pujols 1st
Stassi also out for Suzuki so we are starting to see if/what depth we have
With Trout’s next home run, he will tie Jay Buhner (SEA) for 10th all-time in AL West home runs at 307.
In regards to the “gifting” of runs/wins by Angels opponents I think we need to be careful not to give the other team too much credit, and in the process take it away from ourselves.
As I mentioned yesterday in the Game Thread those two early runs scored by the Angels were in part due to the heads-up baserunning of Walsh by forcing the throw to third. If he conservatively stays at second those errors never happen. So he and by extension we (the Angels) deserve some of the credit. This is old school “1985 baseball” as Joe Maddon likes to call it.
Likewise, I feel that the 4th run we scored was largely due to Ohtani being the batter since the KC shortstop was well aware of Shohei’s speed and thus was thinking about the throw before cleaning catching the ball.These things often get overlooked when we say the Royals gifted the Angels a win or “handed to us on a silver platter.” That is just not the case. The Angels pressure their opponents into these mistakes.
Agree…doesn’t matter how the runs are scored as long as it’s a win.
Yeah. You’ve got to make your own luck.
This is why I carry around a coin with heads on both sides.
Genius.
Good way to win a bet! 😉
Agree to a large degree. Being aggressive does create opportunities and Ohtani’s speed definitely impacted that play. In watching the replay it appears to be a bang/bang play even if the ball is fielded quickly.
Halo aggressiveness is forcing opponents into mistakes. So far, we have been on the positive side of the running into outs/forcing throwing errors ledger. Personally, I love watching this pushing the envelope style. Somebody mentioned the other day not being slavish to the three true outcomes style of ball, not sure if it was Matty V or on MLB Network radio. Definitely like shaking up the status quo with wins, though.
They’re called unearned runs, so it is a gift. Doesn’t matter if a fielder dropped a fly ball or a mistake was caused by base running.
Yes but players are more likely to make mistakes when the opponent is aggressive. If you know Ohtani is burning down the line, you are more likely to start the throw before securing the ball. If you are taking one last peek to see if a runner is tagging, you are more likely to drop the ball.
Many runs the Angels scored could have been prevented. But I also doubt some of those errors occur if we were the station to station team we were a few years ago.
I agree. The random fly ball that’s dropped (sun/lights in eyes, hit really high up, etc) is different than stealing second, errant throw going into center so you advance to 3rd and scoring on a sac fly (you could still have a no hitter in this case). I think both are scored as unearned runs, which are gifts to the receiving team.
Aggressiveness.
Putting the ball in play, forcing them to make plays.
Seem to be a smart, good base running team.
Top 10 hitting in most stats.
….it all adds up
and in other possible positive news…I don’t think this offense if firing on all cylinders yet.
If that is the case, teams will have a need to clean uniforms of more than just grass and dirt stains.
Yep. Rendon hasn’t even got going yet.
I’m happy the team is doing well while Rendon and Fletcher struggle offensively.
I expect them to each heat up at some point. By then a couple of other guys will likely be struggling.
Those are some great observations, Jack!
I certainly don’t expect this team to win 7 out of 10 consistently.
But if they can do that a few more times, win 6 of 10 a number of times and go 5 and 5 a few times – we may have something.
Now if Canning and Heaney can get it going we will be division winners maybe. We have one more win than the Asstros after their hot start and we are in first and not them. Bad news concerning Rendon having a strained groin as they take forever to heal. Go Angels!
First Place!!! All we have to do now is stay in the hunt!!!
Pitching, pitching, pitching, pitching…did I mention pitching?
The only murals we ever get are of dead pitchers unfortunately.
Good set of links thanks
You’re welcome.
It is appropriate that the Joe Kelly mural is in Venice since he looks like a crack-head wearing a Dodgers jersey and hanging out on the Venice Boardwalk more than a big league pitcher, lol.
BTW, there is a sports mural (with various athletes from “LA” sports teams) on Arlington Blvd in Los Angeles and Tyler Skaggs is among those depicted in it. It is a cool sort of thing, even though the art is not of the highest quality as far as murals go,
Same reason there are relatively many Kobe murals.
Hey all, sorry I couldn’t get the series preview up yesterday; I’ve been traveling. Had I done it, I would have said we take about ~2.5 of 3 games in the series. Having seen the first game, I am more confident in that prediction! =)
Ben Rowen…7 pitches 6 for strikes equals 3 outs.
Is Perry’s dumpster diving better than Eppler’s?
Perry certainly has some art and craft there, like which dumpster do you approach, how do you dive in etc…
I think he used one of those metal sticks with the claw/pinchers on the end and gently plucked Cobb off the top of the smelly garbage.
Seems like the organization plan is go after relievers who are solid but maybe overlooked just because they don’t light up 95+ every hitter. Claudio, Watson, Cishek, Rowen, lots of sidearm/submarine and different looks. Could play well over the long haul. Mayers and Iglesias are the more traditional flamethrowers and a good mix/balance every game can really throw off the opponents’ lineup.
Exactly. Eppler only looked into the velocity dumpster. So he got a lot of guys with the same profile: power, no control, high injury risk.
Eppler’s model likely has the highest upside. Get a flame thrower and unlock a little something control wise and you have a bona fide stud. However, it also has a huge downside in injuries, walks, and HR allowed.
Perry’s model seems to have a higher floor. Guys aren’t going to strike out the side often but they’ll stay healthy and keep the ball in the yard. It will take a rally to beat you rather than a walk and a bomb.
I’ve always looked at this game as 16 ten game contests with two potential playoff games at the end. If you can win the most of the 10 game spurts in your division – you have a great chance. Let’s go win the next 10 game swing.
Interesting take.
I usually look at baseball seasons as filling up two buckets, 50 wins and 50 losses, to get to the numbers that really matter.
The sooner a team notches its 50th win, the more likely they are to make the post season. The sooner the 50th loss, the more evident the season is over.
I think of the season as a box of chocolates. You never know what’s inside. Sometimes it’s Jared Walsh, sometimes it’s Anthony Rendon’s groin.