John Means of the Orioles pitched the third nine inning no-hitter of the young season. Meanwhile, a pitcher hits a grand slam, and it’s not Shohei Ohtani.
Angels Links
Anthony Rendon is on the injured list and the Angels designated Ben Rowen for assignment.
This may be old news, but when the Angels selected the contract of Phil Gosselin they also designated Scott Schebler for assignment.
Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout are awesome. Unfortunately, it takes more than two guys to make a baseball team. Ohtani’s splitter, though, is virtually unhittable.
Tuesday’s game was the first time the Angels had four errors in the same game since the 2018 season.
Links From Around Baseball
This is interesting. Drew Robinson, who lost an eye in his failed suicide attempt last year, made it back onto the Giants AAA affiliate the Sacramento River Cats. Says he, “I’m officially a one-eyed professional baseball player.” He also says “It feels like I am living out a movie.”
Angel Hernandez admits he guessed and guessed wrong when making a call during a game at Kauffman Stadium. Terry Francona posed a rhetorical question to Angel Hernandez. Personally, I might ask him if he’d be interested in changing his name to something like Astro Hernandez.
The Toronto Blue Jays will begin playing their home games in Buffalo on June 1st.
Joe Girardi tried to bring in a relief pitcher that was not on the lineup card. It didn’t work out.
Javy Báez was fined an undisclosed amount for his part in the bench clearing incident between the Cubs and the Reds.
Tommy La Stella will miss at least a month because of his hamstring strain.
This is a tough break for Joey Votto and the Reds. He’s probably also going to miss at least a month.
Fangraphs introduced a regular season transaction tracker. It looks pretty cool.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Anyone know what’s up with foreign substances and pitchers? We had a former bat boy provide pitchers with something, right?
I keep seeing videos of different pitchers with stuff in their glove (means Baltimore no-hitter last night being most recent). I know there have been talks amongst players that cold weather or unusually difficult circumstances that it makes sense for both pitcher and hitter to have a better grip, but is this just something that’s generally ok?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3FXVgHhHufE
Farm highlights (after two games):
Ones that got away:
Holy shit! They’re releasing Pujols!!!!
I’m sure he’s a good man but I like this move
When you don’t know how windy it gets at Wrigley…
https://twitter.com/AudacySports/status/1390328000034447367
The one Cubs game I went to at Wrigley, I’m pretty sure I saw all 4 seasons over a 3 hour stretch. Hot to cold to rainy to windy back to warm. If you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes!
Rendon ends up on IL:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mlb.com/amp/news/anthony-rendon-to-injured-list-with-knee-injury.html
I’m OK with it. That knee wasn’t going to be functional for at least a week in an absolute best case scenario so get the roster spot for someone who can play.
Your 2021 Angels – They are playing some games.
I thought we were supposed to win some games also?
2021 Angel Marketing Campaigns
Ohtani and Trout
And an old guy with gout
Trout and Ohtani
And guys with a hurt knee
With pitching, fewer injuries and defense
This team might actually have a chance
I’m still waiting for that win dividend we were supposed to get for losing Scioscia.
If Rodriguez’ shoulder inflammation is a real thing this team is honestly cursed.
If/when the injuries and schedule in May bury us before Summer I’d like to see them absolutely tear it down well before the deadline. Move on from Pujols as respectfully as possible, eat Upton’s salary and overhaul the locker room with hungry guys that can at least develop and get better like Marsh and Adell.
Best case scenario right now is Iglesias is OK in the pen and maintains some trade value. Outside of him there’s nobody else anyone would want (as usual).
I’m in full tear down mode too. Tired of pussyfooting and ending 5 games outside the playoffs. Trout to me is the wildcard.
re : “this team is honestly cursed.”
Maybe they should find a shaman to do a cleansing ceremony, like they did for the Indian burial ground prior to the 2002 World Series.
It’s far too late to tear it down because there is nothing to tear down. The Angels let their tower fall apart naturally without recouping any of the resources. They are already in full rebuild mode and have been for several years.
It really doesn’t matter if Pujols and Upton are playing or not. The problem isn’t that they are on the roster, the problem is their contracts. The Angels need to build practically a full team, but they already spent a third of their construction budget on defective materials.
We’re pretty much hosed until we start drafting and developing pitching. Our tradable assets are Adell, Marsh, Walsh, Fletcher, Ohtani, Bundy, Canning, Heaney and Iglesias.
2022 seems like a lost season for sure. Even though Pujols comes off the books, we have so many pitching holes to fill and nothing in the minors that the salary we save on Pujols is just going to get us a bunch of players barely above replacement value to fill out the roster.
Bundy, Heaney and Iglesias are free agents next year, the rest are controllable for a while, but if we only trade these 3 guys, does that get us enough to come back and actually compete in 2023?