Anthony Rendon went from day to day to season ending wrist surgery in the blink of an eye. At least he will have more time to get his hips better. He was placed on the 60 day IL so the Angels could select David MacKinnon for the second game of Saturday’s double header.
Austin Romine got a minor league deal with the St. Louis Cardinals. Justin Upton got recalled by the Mariners in time for game 2 of the Mariners/Angels series. Michael Lorenzen beaned him and blamed MLB for messing around with the baseballs. Andrew Heaney was reactivated from the injured list. He missed two months with a sore shoulder. The Giants also activated Alex Cobb over the weekend.
Tylor Megill went on the 15 day injured list with a shoulder strain. Mookie Betts went on the injured list with a cracked rib. I doubt if he is going to feel like playing baseball for quite a while.
The Brewers waited until Lorenzo Cain reached ten years of service time before designating him for assignment.
Mike Shildt wants to manage again. The article suggests he didn’t like to be bothered too much about analytics by the Cardinals front office.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Hoping for a hot start to the homestand tonight. I think this team is probably pretty fragile right now and a big win tonight could be a huge boost to their confidence.
the older we get the less we notice how quickly the season goes by. We’ve now played over 40% of 2022. We can’t keep saying “it’s early” and think we can afford a lineup like the one we had in that losing game to Seattle.
Tonight’s batting order and line up:
Ward
Trout
Ohtani
Duffy
Walsh
Rengifo
Suzuki
Marsh
Velazquez
Suzuki has secret pictures of Nevin which he used to get into the lineup with regularity.
Squid legs tonight!
We have to sweep the Royals, there’s no more margin for error
Halo bros from Locked on Angels suggested acquiring Andujar from Stankys to play 3rd and then move him to 2nd when Rendone returns
I thought the same thing but what do we give up?
Pitching prospects
Andujar is a hard pass, just need a stop gap
Oh, you mean like Duffey, Wade or Rengifo
Nah, nobody exists internal to the franchise. Andujar is 4 years away from his breakout rookie season and had a stone glove. Yanks would want some good prospects for him. Rendon will be back next year, all $38M of him. Fletch is the 2nd baseman. Don’t see the Angels going for him.
Suddenly I am looking forward to baseball again.
All of Trout’s 5 HRs against Seattle were hit to either center or right-center field. Meaning he’s putting the barrel of the bat to the ball without pulling. It’s a really good sign that he’s got his hitting groove back. More of this type of hitting please. Got to cut down on Ks though.
Calling 2002……
https://twitter.com/TaylorBlakeWard/status/1538732071056601088?s=20&t=f-Tbf5RNHf_abct-W_7rSA
I have seen MacKinnon play first base several times in the minors. He is, like Walsh, a great defensive first baseman. He is one of those guys that you just enjoy watching playing his position so well. I don’t know how many at-bats he will get unless the Angels are going to want to platoon Walsh, etc. (which I don’t want to see). Though, I could live with an outfield of Walsh, Trout, and Marsh (with MacKinnon at 1B) if they are not going to bring Adell back up.
Only if we are resting Ward his bat is too valuable to sit. Would you rather play Walsh in Left or Right?
Disagree. I do not want Walsh anywhere near the OF. He belongs at 1st. If that means Mackinnon is blocked, so be it. He does appear to be very good defensively, but he has a long way to go to prove he can handle MLB pitching.
It is not that I am necessarily trying to get MacKinnon in the line up but I am trying to get Lagares out of the outfield. Of course, I missed Ward in my earlier post. So maybe, what I really want is Marsh, Trout, and Ward in the outfield. Then Walsh can be the 4th outfielder instead of Lagares with MacKinnon playing first base when Walsh is playing the outfield.
I’m interested in seeing if Mac can hit. If his glove is as good as they say get him some reps at 3rd, if he handle it, give him a start their once or twice a week. Ditto at 2nd, ditto in the OF. Take a look at all options, if Max Muncy can basically play every position except SS, Catcher and CF maybe Mac can. Pull him for defensive replacement after we give him some AB’s.
It is odd that the Angels did not play him at 3B in the minors. MacKinnon only played two games at 2B in the minors with the rest of his defensive appearances being at 1B.
https://www.milb.com/player/david-mackinnon-676950?stats=career-r-fielding-minors&year=2022
As an organization we are frequently willing to let our tiny utility middle infielders play the OF and 3rd, to a fault if you ask me…just in the last few years, Rojas, Rengifo, Wade, Mayfield, Wong, others, why not give Mac a try.
The key to making a playoff push will be a better offense. Can’t continue to send up 4 or 5 auto outs every night. Too much stress/pressure on the pitching and the top of the order
Free Mac
Free the Plumber.
Free Fletch’s Hernia.
I can see platooning Mac with Walsh just to see what we have in him, in case of injury or as a trade chip later
Crazy what winning 4 out of 5 will do for morale. Particularly mine.
We’re 3 games under .500 with a 9 game homestand against pretty mediocre teams. If we can win each series, that leaves us at .500 for a road trip that isn’t all that daunting.
Bullpen pecking orders are always fluid and right now Wantz, Bradley, and Herget are the best arms available with Tepera coming around. Loup looks lost.
I hope Nevin realizes he needs to reshuffle the chain.
Sent Wantz an email, apologized for mocking him and assumed low expectations.
I’m sure to have jinxed him now.
The Quesadilla’s is also looking pretty damn good.
I like quijada as the 8th/setup guy. The left and then right/iglesias combo is lethal.
I had hoped for a 11-4 record in the stretch that started in Seattle and ends with the White Sox at home. Let’s hope that the team comes out hungry for wins against KC.
Back in WS contention
Sigh. Not this again.
we’re gonna win!!
Hold on to your ASS Jack! Keep your calendar open for October!
I’ll keep your seat warm on the bandwagon.
Hey, having a good feeling inside is one thing. Just don’t broadcast it.
I like our talent as well.. We really caught an incredible number of bad breaks on that long losing streak. I just never like fans who don’t know that much talking out of their asses. Better to focus on the short term; “I like our chances in this upcoming series” etc.
Or “I think we can beat Houston in our next series with them”… Just jumping all the way to October when we are coming off a 14 game losing streak seems like the height of stupidity to me.
All in good fun my friend…..I’ll make sure to have some “miracle salve” for your chapped ass when October rolls around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbKPZd5oihc
You are Better off filling your October calendar up with all kinds of appointments and trips you have to cancel later, then to get stuck sitting at home with nothing to do except root for the teams playing the Doyers.
Great groove. Billy Preston added alot to this track.
You win. You are the saddest saggiest sack
“having a good feeling is one thing, just don’t broadcast it”
this is a sports blog where we take time out of our short lives to comment on a baseball team. He can broadcast anything he wants. Stop telling others what they can and cannot say. FFS
I mean, it would get annoying if he commented the SAME positive thought over and over again day after day. Like some fellas and their hardon for Rendon.
Uhng…. could you imagine the TootyToo of positivity? Or someone who loves a player as much as MarineLer hates Rendon? Well, I guess there were some guys around here that were like that about Fletcher for a while…. it got pretty gross.
anything being posted over and over again would get annoying. Except PhiSlamma’s epic takedown of Halowood back at HH. I could see that comment every day and still laugh.
Total Baseball Domination. What are we, 18 back from the best record in baseball? Easy. Then, after we claim to what’s obviously ours we move on to the World Series. Simple.
Right!?!? It’s pretty simple, really.
Interestingly, Ohtani and Wade lead the league (tied) in caught stealing at 5. That’s a weird statistic made stranger by Ohtani’s speed.
Doesn’t surprise me with Wade. I remember early in the year feeling like Maddon was too in love with his speed and he kept giving away outs for bunt attempts and failed steals.
The guy should do both of these things but there should be some element of surprise or picking the right spots. It became predictable.
When we got Wade I remember Yanks fans on MLBtraderumors saying he got caught stealing a lot. Guess they were right.
Maybe change that sitename to mlbfacts
I’m still waiting to see Wade turn a single into a triple, as he himself said he could do. Man, that jit is gonna be LIT!
That said, I ain’t a-holdin’ mah breath. Wade is the latest version of Feather Taylorston, eh?
We make average catcher’s look like Johnny Bench throwing to second base.
Ohtani gets cut down at an unimpressive rate. He led the league last year in Caught Steals. But he crushed everywhere else 🙂
Must be an issue with his jump. He’s fast enough to have 20+ stolen bases
Not really: fast guys make more attempts, so they get caught more often. The trick is with the ability to get the timing right, to read the situation, and coaches strategizing better.
I think it is possible that Wade is tipping his hand when he is going. This would almost be like a pitcher tipping his pitches; there may be a physical cue that gives him away.
I think he is just lousy at stealing and stop giving him the green light. Slow first step or slow to accelerate or does not read the pitcher or sliding techniques or all the above?? Matter of fact, he is just a sub-par player.
Ohtani is also not efficient but I think management allows him to try to steal to add to the legend status. He won’t go head first nor should management let him.
Now the Squid, appears he can read and get good jump.
Wade has over-slid the bag the majority of his attempts, tagged out or almost tagged out after. Speed probably isn’t even the most important part of being a good base runner. Knowing pitchers tendencies and scouting are most important. My guess is like in a lot of areas, we don’t have someone good to teach the art of stealing a base in our system. A lot of speed on this team and it’s not utilized, prefer to hit homers, they are not going to start manufacturing runs anytime soon.
Bourjos was one of the fastest players I’ve ever seen but he couldn’t steal a base to save his life. Conversely, Bobby Abreu would routinely steal 25-30 bags at a pretty decent conversion rate.
Ironically, is Taylor Ward our best base runner right now?
I think someone in the organization adjusted Wards Homing beacon. Running the bases better, better routs in the OF.
So true of Bourjos. It did not help his moniker was “speedy.”
Feels like the same crap with Wade. if you don’t have a resume of being successful better than 80% of the time, just stay on your base.
Problem with squid is, he’s not even hitting his weight, so he rarely gets on.
there’s counting stats and rate stats. If Wade had a good rate then the number of caught stealing would be ok but both Ohtani and Wade have been caught over 40% of the time. Someone did a study and said if you get caught 25% it’s ok.
I remember mark or matt saying trout hasn’t attempted one stolen base this season. That completely shocked me as well.
I think the lack of attempts shows that he is gingering the calf strain from last year, why press it. But yeah, usually by now, he is trying and there to pick his spots.
I mean he does play cf and has sprinted many times, made leaps, and jumps. Not sure why he would avoid stealing bases. Strange lol
Lots of home runs and strikeouts? On first with open bases in front of him relatively rarely? Don’t want to distract Ohtani when batting after him?
Good points, Mr. Slugging Average just may not be standing on 1st very much. But not one attempt? Don’t think the last bullet weighs into it though.
Terry Smith said it best on the postgame, “We have some momentum.”
So lets do what were suppose to do and beat up on a bad team in KC.
To quote Jose Guillen : “Be careful.”
Don’t start calling other teams “bad teams” and making assumptions of easy victory.
Over-confidence is hubris. Pride comes before the Fall, and all of that. Just say
I hope we play well and leave it at that…
KC is currently 23-42 with a .354 winning % and second worst record in the AL. They are pretty much the definition of a “bad team.” There’s no pride involved in calling them a bad team, or hoping we play well against them. This is yet another strange take from you, halofan’s comment was fairly milquetoast.
Thank you pints…you’re the voice of reason.
I really dont give a rip what we call them as long as we win. Thats the only thing that matters whether its the Royals Reds or the ’27 Yankees
Just win baby
“Voice of reason?” What reason is that?
He doesn’t even understand how players and coaches think and operate. Sure, we are fans, not players etc. But all the teams we face are still MLB players and can beat us on any given night. It is not as if we are facing a High School team that literally has zero chance of winning.
“He doesn’t even understand how players and coaches think and operate.”
What does this even mean? Do any of us know this? Are you in the halos players’ and coaches’ heads? Or do you just assume every thought you have is the correct one, so anyone that counters it is plainly wrong, no discussion needed?
NEWS FLASH Jack! You don’t know what they’re thinking either. Stop pretending you do, or that every player/coach thinks the exact same way…which just so happens to align with whatever weird thoughts you’ve cooked up in your head. I know you’re an older dude, so I apologize if I call BS on your claim that you know what is going through the head of a 22 Venezuelan pitcher.
Don’t be stupid. If you’ve followed the game for 30+ years and listened to a shit ton of interviews you will hear the players say this stuff (or in my example not say it).
All you have to do is listen and pay attention. But I guess you are not very good at either one of those things.
We aren’t players Jack! This is a blog of fans. Stop acting like you have the mindset of the players and coaches because you watch games. We all watch games! Get over yourself and stop trying to squelch the tiniest hint of optimism after they just won 4 out of 5 and are about to play a BAD TEAM (yeah I said it).
One day you’re crying because you get labelled as a doomer after constant negative comments, the next you’re telling others not to be optimistic, with your basis being that the real players who play try not to get too cocky. Guess what: Halofan’s comment isn’t going to be on the bulletin board in the visitor’s clubhouse tonight as motivation. Deal with it.
2pints. When autism speaks it’s often times best to just let it say what it’s going to say.
“Voice of reason?” What reason is that?
He doesn’t even understand how players and coaches think and operate.
Think thats my fav CrackFrost sentence ever. Speaking like he’s so sure he knows exactly what every player and coach are thinking at all times because he watches games and interviews. I wonder if he can tell me what Jazz Chisolm is thinking on any given day. I’m sure Jazz and JF have loads in common.
So does Lyle Spencer…..over 4,000
Don’t think it is “strange” at all. This is SOP for players and coaches themselves. They would line up perfectly with what I stated. You don’t disrespect your opponent right before facing them. Everybody knows that. Just go back to last year when people were predicting a sweep in August against a “bad” Orioles team.
We lost 2 out of 3. This is baseball. Anything can happen and usually does. Not smart to disrespect ones opponent.
We’re not players…we’re fans and get to talk all the shxt we want.
But we are playas
Touche’
Amen
as halofan already said, we aren’t player or coaches, so wth are you talking about? The comment that set you off on your strange stance was as vanilla a comment as you’ll find on a sports blog.
Lets just forget the psychobabble and kick some ass!!!
Hey, that is okay. All for that. But calling teams bad, even if their record is poor and saying we should thrash them is just bad juju. If the players and the coaches themselves don’t do this (there are rare exceptions) then that says alot.
We hope you at least enjoy it when we destroy their pitcher tonight.
Kris Bubic 0-4 8.36 ERA.
Boob itch. Yikes. Wouldn’t you change your last name to Smith or something?
Better than Joc Itch I suppose.
Imagine if his middle name were “Etch.” Joc Etch Pederson.
Former nascar driver Dick Trickle says hello.
Hey, I am not saying I don’t like our chances.
I just prefer to be a little less disrespectful to opponents.
All that said, I do think our offense will have a good game. Whether or not that will be enough to win, we shall see.
And I do predict that Shohei will go off and hit 2 HR’s tonight.
you just don’t want us to be “bragiocous”
20000.wav – Wilt Chamberlain in an interview on playing in today’s NBA: “I don’t say that in any way of being ‘bragiocous.'”
so saying our offense will have a good game and Ohtani will hit 2 homers isn’t being disrespectful to the opposing pitcher, who is a player and deserves your respect?
Pick a lane dude!
Big difference between saying what I said and saying what halofan78 said above : “let’s do what were (sic) supposed to do and beat up on a bad team in Kansas City.” I never predicted a win or especially that we would “beat up on” a team.
As I have already stated, this is Major League Baseball. Every win has to been earned. NOTHING is given and nothing is automatic. I think my response is pretty straight forward and even self-evident. As for disrespecting their pitcher/s, it is possible to score a bunch of runs and lose… Ohtani could hit 2 HR’s and we could lose 8-7. I think the KC pitchers and team would take that…
You’re on crack Frost.
new nickname: CrackFrost
has a nice ring to it
Hmmmmm!!!
Holly F*** this has really dragged on.
Guy’s if you keep arguing with Jack Frost he will NEVER let it go. I suspect he goes back to month old comment sections and replies one last comment on shit just to get the last word in.
If you keep disagreeing with him he will forget to eat or go to the bathroom and his loved one’s will have to pry his desiccated body, covered in a layer of it’s own poop, away from the keyboard again so they can force an IV drip into him.
Put on your shorts and jump in! Yippee-kai-yay!
BTW: FUCK Jose Guillen…he’s a punk.
Think he will come after me now Frost?
You just made an excellent argument for continuing to disagree.
is that a guarantee?
Hey Twebur, is it time to Cue Jim Healy’s Sir Charles sound bite?
badteam.wav – Charles Barkley saying “Bad team man. Bad f***ing team.”
This reminds me of when I mentioned the strange love affair that some had on here for Jerry DiPoto a while back
Turned out we won 4 out of 5 lol.
DiPoto probably shit his pants this weekend. It was very interesting how he brought up Upton for this series. Trying to psyche the Angels out. Didn’t work.
I don’t think he was trying to “psyche them out,” I think he just hoped that Upton would pull a “revenge” performance out of his hat. It would not have been the first time a recently released player came back and raked against a former team.
Totally tried to Psyche us out.
Angels have ways of making very bad teams look like world beaters.
I’ll take and enjoy these past wins but they don’t mean anything other than we took it to the Mariners. Do it against a couple more teams (take 2 outta 3) and now we’re in business!
You are right on target with this comment aces. The problem with so many people here is that they think the M’s series says something about what will happen in THIS series.
It doesn’t. Every game and every series is a separate entity. Despite the fact that there is a thing called momentum, the other team is out there doing everything possible to quash the momentum. The second a “good” team looks past a “bad” team is when they get their asses handed to them.
Just ask the Dodgers who got SWEPT at home by the frickin Pirates ! The PIRATES.
But I bet thousands of Dodgers fans on “True Blue LA” were talking about how they would “beat up” on that “bad” team.
I’m more worried about returning home after a perceived good road trip, we frequently don’t continue with that good road mojo. Less about how good or bad the team is that we are playing against.
trAdition
Monday home games coming off a road trip are always problematic.
I think the players are thinking more about having sex with their wives and girlfriends and less about the game.
If the halos lose tonight I’m going to imagine you angrily watching and muttering to yourself about how horny Trout and Ohtani are. After a strikeout I’ll assume you scream at your TV “stop thinking with your dick and focus on the game!!”
Tonight’s game is going to be way more entertaining now. thanks for that
Ok. At this point you’re just trying to get people to mock you, right? Or do you really think someone out here’s reading this and thinking “Holy smokes…. this guy’s so far up inside baseball baseball’s begging a doctor to get Jack out.”
Didn’t the players get home last night? So they slept in their own beds next to their significant others?
But in JF’s mind, the players are so unbelievably horny from a road trip that their loins cannot be controlled, even after a night with their ladies. They’re going to be thinking about their blue balls instead of baseballs all night.
Just a truly strange take by him.
Don’t mock it! Loin control is a problem so many men suffer from…. asking for a friend…..
I mean, if I wanted to provide a strange take I could put you on…
I if we can win every series here on out we could crawl back up to the playoffs, and it will be hard to do against The Rays, Blue Jays Red Sox and W/S. But we have the starting pitching to do it.
Dodgers have lost Mookie, they are playing with the injury bug big time this year.
I can tell you right now we are not going to win every series. That is why it becomes so important (as I said about a week ago) to put together at least one long winning streak of 8 or 9 games (while avoiding a long losing streak of course). If we can do that and play around .525 or so in all the other games we should have a shot. No guarantees though.
We have to hope both Cleveland and Boston fall back a bit.
I think you said it 6.125 days ago.
Cleveland has won the last 15 out of 19 games while the Red Sox are 13-4 In June. Why can’t we do at least that?
No. It was 6.782 days ago. But really, who’s keeping track?
During that 14 game losing streak, 7 of those games were lost by one run. What could have been right now had we been able to win those 7 games.
Totally agree. Many of those losses were not only very winnable, but games we should have won.
Back home tonight against the Royals. The Royals are a lot like the Red Sox and Twins to me. They gave us the Boot up the ass in our last appearance in the Playoffs in 2014, a series we should have won, but didn’t The Royals are fun to hate because they were in the same Western Division as us from 1969 until I think 1994. ’75 to ’90 they beat us like stepchildren and always had better player’s than us. Frank White, Amos Otis, George Brett, Darrell Porter, Bert Saberhagen, the Quiz, Gubi, Splittorf, And I have missed many others. So, I dis like the Royal and would love to sweep this 3 game series against them.
Hope you’re Father’s Day was as wonderful as mine was. Not one of the kids came over, or up the hill as they went to their spouse’s father’s houses, but I get 4th of July this year and can’t wait. Big Bear this year instead of Fireworks over the lake will entertain us with drones over the lake. Sounds really exciting.
Sosh and Joe didn’t give a darn about analytics and lost their jobs. Assmus lost his and he cared about analytics. Can’t win for losing. Hard to believe in something that believes that there are only 3 outcomes per at bat and hitting the ball on the ground is not one of them. A lot of batters made a career hitting the ball past the defenders through the infield.
Change up, cutter, curve and 4-seam, that’s what the pitchers throw for the most part, but a FB that’s 100 mph is tough to hit. Yesterday, Seattle’s Gilbert had a contest within himself and with Trouty and feed him FB after FB but he feed him one to many a FB and not only did he give up a hit to Trouty, but a HR to Trout. I don’t know if that last pitch was 100 mph, but I know Trouty hit a FB out for a HR. Below the belt strike is a bad idea even though Mike is 31 yrs old soon. He went MIA during the team slump, he sure has come back alive against the M’s and Trout said Hi Jerry 5 times in 5 games. Trouty one, Gilbert zero.
Analytics still believes in groundball pitchers and hitters. The theory is that walks, strikeouts and HRs are the only outcomes not affected by the defense, so they provide a better tool for evaluating pitchers independently from their team.
It’s still wrong, since you can rob HRs and since catchers play a vital role in pitch selection, but the analysts recognize those flaws as well. The flaws also don’t eliminate the value of the metric.
For example, a pitcher with a better ERA than FIP might have just gotten lucky. However, a pitcher that consistently outperforms FIP is probably better-than-average at inducing weak contact.
I’ll tell you this. Jered Weaver’s best year was 2011, when he had a 2.41 ERA in 235 innings and 5.4 WAR. Anyone who looks only at FIP and WAR would say 2010 was his best season, but that’s pretty clearly wrong.
Yes, Weaver had a higher strikeout rate in 2010 (thus the higher WAR), but in 2011 he was a master of generating weak contact and avoiding the long ball.
Man I miss WTY.
I loved his mentality.
He was a true warrior and key asset both on the field and in the clubhouse.
Some legendary after-game tales to be told as well at Goat Hill Tavern.
<JF the following is not directed at you> I realized if he had came up and pitched for any other team, we would have called him a douche. After all, it is against the rules here to recognize *any* talent and skill on the other side of the field 😂
Speaking of that, those that claim Rendon is stealing money, by that frame of thought, you would have to agree Weaver stole $39MM the last two years of his Angel career to completely suck.