After what has been a very long baseball day, there is still a game to be played. The Angels finally release the lineup about 30 minutes before first pitch. Jack Kruger may make his Major League debut. He is up, as are Jon Jay and Félix Peña.
Rays Lineup: Arozarena 7, Margot 9, Meadows DH, Díaz 3, Brosseau 4, Wendle 5, Zunino 2, Adames 6, Phillips 8. McHugh 1.
Angels Lineup: Fletcher 4, Ohtani DH, Trout 8, Walsh 3, Iglesias 6, Ward 9, Suzuki 2, Lagares 7, Gosselin 5. Heaney 1.
I expect the Angels to lose now. Every night. They’ve gotten a solid 5 innings from their SP and still can’t score runs. If the starters suck, the bullpen might be okay, but too late. If the Angels score runs after the 6th, MAYBE they win, but the BP likely blows it.
For me, the worst Angels loss is when we get a solid 5+ from the starter, lose, and Trout goes 0-4 or 0-3 w/a walk. I’m basically following MNT and Ohtani at this point. It’s May 6 and I have very close to ZERO hope this team will get any better, despite cutting the cord w/Al.
Why? Bullpen sucks ass. And some key guys are under-performing. (Lookin’ at YOU, Fletch.)
They won’t win until they get Rendon and Upton back. This lineup with the pitching is horrid.
Yea, and C-Rod too. Please!
Was the last win when we scored 10 runs? If so, wasn’t that, like 3 weeks ago? Feels like it.
Too many moons ago
That was way back when Pujols played for us
Ward never beats the throw at 1st
Somewhere Lyle Spencer and Albert Pujols are laughing
💩
Well onto the Dodgers!
Two teams that need wins, badly.
All done yay
2 out rally time!
You got rid of Pujols. Smart move, Angels.
But your pitching still sucks ass.
… and the culture in the FO with Arte being the head of the rotting fish is still there…
Not to mention a bad pitching coach as well. The other pitching coach that was half-way decent decided to fool around.
Bring back the Butcher of Anaheim
At least he made a mean hand tossed pizza crust
Pizza-Pizza
Might be the most poorly coached Angels team I can remember watching in the past 20 years.
Barring a real turnaround this season would anyone miss Joe Maddon and his staff? I feel like we have Doug White’s coaching everyone on everything.
Joe is here to stay. It will be his choice.
This is not all his fault. He just has bad pitchers and a horrid pitching coach.
He picked the coach, and he didn’t demand better pitching. He shares in the blame
He picked a decent pitching coach in Callaway but the guy decided to fool around instead.
Not sure he can “demand” it.
But how do you know he didn’t ask for it?
Who hired the pitching coach?
Maddon hired Callaway but unfortunately we are now stuck with Wise.
The real impactful pitching coaches are far and few in between. I personally don’t care for Callaway or Wise but not sure who to bring in. Pitching coaches don’t always connect with every pitcher.
Yep. Cursed.
Just pointing out he has deep ties and a GM who really likes him.
He was here before the GM, and does Perry “Really like him” really? Really-really?
You got a point, might have endorsed what a wonderful guy he was to get the job. If Perry wants him out, I’m good over here.
Again, this is not on Maddon. It is just stupid to think he is to blame for this.
So players that had track records of defensive prowess elsewhere just all of a sudden suck in Anaheim and we’re not allowed to wonder about the coaching staff and culture that Maddon’s hands-off style might allow to fester?
Maddon is fine if a team is winning due to good GM’ing. His style kind of exacerbates bad situations IMO.
That is a good take in my opinion. Cool guy but does the style work with a team like this. Fundamentals start in the minors, so could be a collective organizational issue?
It IS an organizational issue.
Do you think it was Joe’s fault that Adell was never taught how to play in the OF?
Don’t be stupid howie — he’s trying to fix a decade + of neglect and dysfunction.
Evidence he has put in place measures to fix the dysfunction? I’m not bagging on Joe like you think I am but I don’t think he deserves a kitchen pass.
With Joe it starts with the individual relationships with the players. I feel pretty sure he began that work the moment he got here (even before that over the phone).
The other stuff takes longer and also requires help from the GM and especially Arte. The Arte part of the equation is where it might get tricky..,
I have news for you; there was already a culture here before Joe arrived and it wasn’t his…
He’s been here close to one full season. I would not expect him to totally overcome that in that time period, especially when Arte has tied the hands of his GM and refuses to invest in quality pitching !!!
Ausmus?
It’s rather ironic that I’ve heard more boos from Angels fans tonight when they essentially gave Pujols a pass for the pass 5 years for playing below replacement level and being a huge anchor.
The meth wore off
Gosselin is fitting right in
Was that ruled an error?
I was too GA, but looked it up in the box score. Gosselin has an error, unless I missed another one earlier.
After starting 7-3… they are… wait for. 6-14.
Destiny!
Awesome
Let’s go Angels!!!!
Yeah, baybee. Let’s go Halos!
We still got a chance
We all knew dropping AP wasn’t going to magically make us competitive. But man, the Angels just wanted to make extra sure they got that point across didn’t they. Sigh. What does next couple of years even look like? I mean, is this level of crap something you could even fix in a season? A few seasons? Maybe we’ll just keep rolling the dice and hope we get lucky one year. Wonder what the probability of that is…
First Halloween, now Elm Street
Kruger era begins
You mean Kroger?
That stater bros off brand, sure
If he does good I’ll call him Freddy
Pic?
Just making sure jessica is still paying attention
Ha!
😛
Waving that white flag!!!
While Pujols sucks, you know the narrative in the national media will be that it’s an organization in turmoil again and it’s time to completely rebuild , by trading Trout and Rendon and building around Ohtani with Pujols gone. Ya never know. Arte May think he’s close to dying and might not care anymore.
Would they be wrong? I mean, I think trading either of them would be insanely stupid, but this team is still going to be trash for the foreseeable future.
Agreed. Trading either Trout or Ohtani is not the answer.
The answer is…….
Arte selling the team.
Yes yes my man
If you think the management is really bad at evaluating talented GMs, Managers and Pitchers why would we trust them to trade Mike Trout and get the right players in return?
Arte just needs to either sell the team or completely burn down the management team of his buddies.
Oh, I don’t trust them to do anything, let alone trade anyone good. I’m just saying, if the media says the only way to win is to trade those guys, you prove them wrong by winning with those guys. But they aren’t going to win with those guys, because the organization is terrible So we’re going to keep hearing it.