It is too early for a game. Something college sports fans in SoCal should get used to though. Anyway, the Angels looked to not get humiliated by Houston for once and sent out Jose Suarez.
Suarez has been doing well as of late, and this continued today. He went 4 and 2/3 innings, allowing 2 runs, with only 1 that was actually his fault. (The bullpen immediately gave up a run.) Jose allowed only 4 hits while striking out 4 and walking none in his outing that should have been longer.
The offense did better than the last 2 days, but that wasn’t saying much. Rengifo hit another home run, surprising everyone by his continued hot streak. Michael Stefanic also made his MLB debut, striking out three times.
20 strikeouts. The Angels struck out 20 times vs the Astros.
Highlighted Recap
Angels scored first thanks to a Luis Rengifo oppo taco in the 2nd.
Another run was added in the 3rd thanks to Ohtani’s single.
However, they should have gotten more, which haunted them as Suarez gave up a solo home run and was pulled after 4 and 2/3 innings. Ortega gave up an inherited runner to tie the game.
Yet, somehow, the pitching duel continued. Neither team budged inning after inning. While the Angels kept striking out, the Astros kept stranding runners. Something had to give.
It was the Angels as Tepera allowed a 2 out, 2 run walkoff blast. Angels lose 4-2.
The Angels get swept and humiliated in Houston.
I swear that the problem is not player related but scouting and analytics. Everybody saying trade to the dodgers for their prospects… how do their prospects fair in other orgs? Calhoun? Cotton? Gray? Ruiz? Verdugo? Downs?? Nobody exactly lighting the league on fire. I definitely think a lot of success within the margins is how the front office connects with coaching and scouting. Look at TB who never loses a trade. Other orgs are catching on. The margins are really the talent and “leadership” .
Makes sense. Same thing could be how they make trash good… then it sucks again when they leave.
No, it’s all just luck and chance. Organizations, executives and owners have no impact on any of this stuff. You’ve convinced us all like 400x a day through the power of snark that placing any blame on daddy is embarrassing. Congrats, you did it!
True dat. No one has been a bigger advocate for less spending on player development and scouts than me. I hate that stuff. information is gross.
Exactly. TBH, I think thats where Eppler (and fir that matter, JeDi, too) had exactly the right idea. The only way to “win” at the game is to collect interesting, but flawed players and either fix them or use them in roles where they are effective and avoid using them where they suck, or in other words, dunpster diving, but with a strategy. But finding suitably “interesting” trash is not easy. Figuring out where and when they do well and where they suck takes real talent and resources. Figuring out how to fix them is both science and art. All these things need organizational commitment in both time and resources. Signing superstars is nice, but they are too expensive for what they bring to the field. You need, really 40-50 player depth in the system to win consistently. We dont have that kind of depth.
This is a notable contrast to the 2002 team. I dont think it was blue collar ethic or grit or football mentality or whatever. That team may not have had the best players, but quality depth everywhere. Everyone in the lineup was at least pretty decent and there were some pretty good players on the bench. All starters were at least competent (thank God Appier still had an arm after years of injuries), and the bullpen was, by the standards if 2002, frighteningly deep (and had some genuinely dangerous pieces). And now, we have Trout and Ohtani, Rendon on IL, and not much of the rest of lineup. (And SP is thin, while the BP just turned to turnip over a few weeks). This seems to be no way to run a baseball team. But how do you get the depth? From dumpsters, hopefully with some scouting and coaching magic along the way (nobody who’s that good wiuld be in dumpster to begin with …). The real trouble with both JeDi and, much more so, Eppler, I propose, was that they didnt have the organization infrastructure ti make dumpster diving productive, not that they were dunpster diving to begin with
Yordan Alvarez?
100%
Other teams know when we’re tipping pitches but our own pitching coach doesn’t.
The team is poorly run and informed. It’s almost as if saving money on first time GMs continues to have unintended learning curves at Trout and Ohtani’s expense.
I’ll never understand why Arte overpays old veterans but wouldn’t do the same for a bona fide GM who would save him so much more money and win more games by overhauling the baseball ops.
Hey ya’ll! Happy 4th. And I’d just like to add it’s great to have the freedom – if only for one day – to not have an Angels game played. The freedom to not watch them get 3 hits, strike out 15-20 times, the freedom to NOT see our once-promising starting staff go 3 1/3, free from a bad bullpen, etc. Oh, yea: I won’t even mention the “Supreme” Court.
Juan Minaya got DFA’d. He doesn’t look like a bad reclamation project: his advanced stats have him pegged at a low 3 era
At this point, why not? He’s probably trash, but why not use 1 40 man spot as the official kissing booth for frogs and see if we can land a winner?
The wheel of fortune methodology is maddening.
Great news. Facing another shut down pitcher…not that facing Cy rookie or Cy 5.89 ERA 5th starter guy is much different for us.
Long live King Rengifo.
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1544027100671262725?s=20&t=LStDSZib2VlPHcSGvD9DRQ
Why not? He’s dirt cheap, (that’s good news for YOU KNOW WHO!! CHEAP AND HIM GO TOGETHER LIKE FISH & WATER) has some power and is way better defensively than anybody else we have.
I actually think Moran would have been an OK gamble. Only issue is 3B is his only position.
I think it would be an awesome move. Is he available? Seems like a solid change of scenery candidate
We also need more Canelo guys anyway
Logan Webb hear our prayers PLZ!!!
Just quick heart health check. Everyone OK? No one spent themselves to death when The Plumber was brought up and Wade was released all in one crazy stripper girlfriend style move of wish fulfillment? All the elderly “I’ve been an Angels fan since my dad rode me to a game on the family mule…” dudes are OK?
Good. Let’s see what that plumber can unplug!
A mule would’ve been cool. All we had was an Aerostar and a 1990 MB 300.
I like donkeys.
Sam Blum (I like this guy) had a piece in the Athletic today: Toxic Positivity. Scary shit, some nuggets from the article:
Sounds like a Yogi-ism::
“For me the strikeout is not — you don’t like to see a guy walk back to the dugout,” Nevin said. “But sometimes it can be a more productive out than a double play.”
Foggy Joe after smok’n the weed:
“My takeaway is that we’re very close to Houston,” Maddon said on April 10. “… We played very well against that particular team right now.”
After the Angels got blown out that night, 9-1, geeze:
“We punched out 14 on the pitching side,” acting interim manager Ray Montgomery said on Saturday regarding a question that was actually about his team’s offense. “So we just need to do a better job of putting balls in play and getting some rallies.”
From the, thanks for the effort but try again category:
“I want the message to be very clear,” Reed said. “These guys are working their tails off. To a guy. One guy from the next, there’s nobody slacking. We’re doing extra velocity work. We’re doing extra breaking ball work. There’s a ton of stuff that is positive in terms of turning the corner. “Today just wasn’t the day.”
Who is on first:
The day before Reid Detmers was optioned to Triple A, Nevin said, “Whenever you write his name down and know that he’s out there, you feel pretty darn confident.”
It’s one thing to believe and another to hope. Sometimes you need to embrace reality and not expect career years from below average players. Need results and don’t sugar coat the failures. Angels fever is toxic.
Keep writing the critiques Sam, Fletcher won’t do it.
May 15, 2003 The Beginning Of The End of Angel’s baseball
💩 💩 💩 💩
Is that the day they gave you a lifetime ban from the Big A?
To be honest I view the exact opposite .. im not a fan of his..
Let me start off by saying I’m not a fan of Arte but because Arte won’t give him the time of day (and nor is he required to do so) he uses it as a chip on his shoulder and makes digs at the organization whenever he can so he can disguise it as being a “white knight” for the fans.
For example.. the last Joe Maddon interview. Was it really necessary to question the players effort? Did he really have to double down and say “well I’m not a world series manager”? While folks thought it “sooo cool” at the time what did it accomplish? Only Joe to lose his job and have folks question the firing thing in the first place.
There’s a way to be hard nosed and get your point across to the fans. An example for those who follow the chargers is Daniel Popper from the athletic. He is also very critical but he does alot of his work off the record. He also massages the fans main questions to the coaches so that there’s a reason to the certain actions and where it still answers the fans questions.
Bottom line is that there’s a way to go about doing things and there’s a way not to
Sam’s bored and probably sick of watching all of this losing even though he’s getting paid for it.
But declaring that the root of the Angels’ problems are the manufactured positive spin that the Angels 4 managers repeat each night trying to explain this shit show over a press conference is just beyond stupid.
The Athletic article is a function of the fact that Blum is too lazy (or underpaid) to actually perform any real reporting where he gets off his ass and interviews the players and the coaches both on and off the record to at least get some background and real sense of where the problems lie.I would at least have modicum of respect for him if actually did some research beyond regurgitating the Angels post game zoom interviews. I know Jeff Fletcher does as he’s previously stated that access to the players (or the lack of access during the pandemic) is one of the most critical components of his job. Apparently Blum doesn’t think so.
Wrong. He’s not saying that positive spin is the root of problems, the overtone is the obvious denial there is an issue and coming to grip with the most obvious element, the roster is just not good. If you keep telling yourself the talent is here to win, you start to believe it.
Ha! You’re saying I’m wrong based upon some perceived “overtones” derived from this story? Thats pretty weak. All Sam’s is doing is writing what he feels based upon his compilation of limited zoom access interviews. BFD. Point to one quote that he included that wasn’t already part of a public interview or wasn’t lifted from one of his previous stories. Unfortunately You cant can’t. My dog could write that story . Blum needs to get off his ass and perform some real journalism. I’m sure he got a big time degree in that from some podunk college so now he needs to put it to work.
I know little will be accomplished by replacing a hitting coach in season. Safe to say they will be let go at seasons end regardless of any improvement.
Isn’t it Wise to just get it over with tomorrow, sometime next week or ASAP…
With our continuing nose dive it’s time to start looking at our neighbors in the very dark, dank, cesspool where the shittiest of the shitty teams dwell.
Top 5 pick is looking more likely than a righting of this rat infested garbage barge.
I still it’s more important to replace the hitters than the coaches.
The Angels are now 11th out of 15 American League teams.
I’m holding on to thoughts of the 69 Mets who finished something like 41-13. Didn’t the Braves catch fire in the 2nd half last year?
If we lost 14 straight then it’s theoretically possible to win 14 straight.
Why are you doing this to yourself Eric ? Why torture yourself ?
Besides, it just makes you look silly when you make a comment like that. And I know you are a smart guy. Look at the reality. It is right there in front of you. The truth hurts, but it is better to accept it as soon as you can…
I mean, we went 4-5 in a homestand against Kansas City, Seattle and Chicago. Those teams are really not that good. Certainly they don’t compare to Houston. Realistically, we needed to go 7-2 in that homestand just to stay afloat for a playoff spot. And what did we do? We went 4-5 ! Maybe with a 6-3 record we could have made an argument, but not 4-5.
Good teams just don’t do that, especially when they are playing for their lives. This team is lifeless and inept. The stench of Arte/Carpino et al pervades the entire org, and infects the players themselves. Even the greatness of Trout and Ohtani are poisoned by “The Arte of Losing.”
Just accept another year of no playoffs. It is much less painful that way. Besides, it is the truth.
I know you’re right. Actually I’m hoping we can go 45-36 and finish with 82 wins. That would be, at this point, acceptable for 2022.
Only people with college degrees are smart and know baseball?
And yet a idiot like myself completely ran circles around you people (like Quiz Show and Good Will Hunting……..a young felony work release janitor and a Jewish subway fare collector from Brooklyn……heeeee!!!) I LMFAO every time a CTPG ,member calls me a idiot. 😆 😆 💪 💪
BTW RIP Herb Stempel!!!
All I got from this comment was that you’re an asshole…. then a bunch of “finger on the pulse of the clubhouse” bullshit and Maybe Data. All he’s saying is some teams HAVE in the past gotten super hot and won out so why not hope for that?
Hope costs nothing in this case…. unless you’re an uptight dumbfuck. Then apparently making sure everyone avoids any hint of all erroneous hope is job one because…. I don’t know why, do you think that if some rube is out there saying maybe something fun will happen it’s tacit approval of Arte or something? That’s likely it.
It makes way less sense to fear anyone enjoying being an Angels fan because it may somehow dissuade the Angels FO from coming over to your side of Prick Avenue than it does for Eric to think “Gee, wouldn’t it be fun if they DID come back? Like all the teams I can list who have done it in the past….”
Lmao. YOU calling me an asshole. That is pretty funny.
There is a big difference between “hope” and naive stupidity. Hope in the face of a hopeless situation which can be lessened by getting out of it is just stupid. You are the type of dumb-fuck who would stay on a sinking ship as it is going down because you believe you will be magically saved at the last second. That, or you would rather adhere to some bullshit narrative about “nobility.”
Now get lost you obnoxious, stupid prick.
Wow its July 4th and we’re starting to eat our own.
gitch has never been one of “our own.” He is a pompous, arrogant cyber-bully who has been attacking people unprovoked for several years running. And pretty much nobody stands up to this jackass.
Honestly I’ve noticed very few people reply to him
I think that alone speaks volumes onto itself.
Kind of like if you want something on social media to die just ignore type of thing.
lmao, 😂
Oh, wait…. I guess your not a stupid knob anymore. You’re totally right. Eric should stop thinking of hypothetical ways he might actually enjoy himself a little this season. Obviously to do so is to accept and tacitly encourage failure, and guys like you don’t accept failure (at least not from other people, ay Jack?). You win the crap out of winning. Obviously you’re not the hot bag of lemons and shit I thought you were. The kind of fella that keeps applying his fecund imagination to NOT hoping because it encourages mediocrity and, worse, failure to acknowledge you.
Let’s just forget that I’m the guy that always says baseball, and even you Jack, basically exist to entertain me. And when things don’t entertain me other things will, like MiLB games and videos of seals talking like people. All the ships are mine, sinking or not. I stand up for limited optimism simply because it’s a lot more fun than being a powerlessly bitching cunt all the time. But I’ve always said if Angel’s games are a bummer go do anything else. Let’s just forget all that. No, I am the bully who is defending mediocrity by allowing all this gross sticky hope to exist.
But who’s the f***ing bully? The guy who keeps pushing other people into the darkened shower stall of misanthropy, or the guy who’s shitting on you for doing it? If you’re so f***ing miserable why not go get a hobby…. model trains are dope. So is flower arranging and HAM radios. Hell, drinking yourself to death can also be mostly a good time.
I’m only obnoxious because you’re so full of shit.
See thats the thing.. “just accept losing.” “The arte of losing”
If that’s the case why be a fan? I’m sure the answer lies in the standard.. “ive been a fan for however many years i need to make me look feel like a lifer” “I was raised…., I have a hope, etc etc etc” which all again don’t align with any of this.
Today the new buzz phrase is “toxic positivity” lol…. so again this is yet another example of what I said above (to be a white knight) .. well what do you want the coaches to say?
Well golly gee wilikers Sam! You’re absolutely right.. our bottom of the lineup is a POS. I dont even know why Wade hasnt been DFA’d sooner. If Loup and Ortega lately can just get their heads out their asses maybe we wouldn’t be where we are. But I have to work with the crap that Perry gives me and go about my day.
Of course not.. so Sam just goes and gets bored and says ok.. i got it! toxic positivity! THAT will fire up the fanbase. Ha ha ha…..
While I understand what you’re saying, advanced stats have a lot of our guys on both ends of the field underperforming. Maybe not enough to make us a playoff team, but I think it’s obvious that we are better than what we’ve been lately.
Toxic Positivity. Great article today in The Athletic and the inability to understand the issues that are inherent. You’re sounding just like the coaches on this team.
That is a perfect way to describe the mindset. Add on terrible owner and FO and you’ve got the losing recipe laid out for all to see who care to open their eyes.
I have said the same thing to myself (The Boys will have me committed if I say it out loud.)
We have the makings to charge back in the second half.
The odds aren’t fantastic, but hell, the only way for anything awesome like that to happen is for us to start out in the dumps like we are now.
***HAPPY 4TH OF JULY*** to all of the Halos fans, have a wonderful day and evening celebrating. ✌ 🇺🇸
Without Angels baseball . Despite needing a respite from all this losing , I feel like this is just another screw job by the league.
No angel baseball on the 4th of july is a travesty. Every team should be scheduled to play today.
The Yankees are not playing either, so I don’t think that this particular decision is about screwing us. I would rather that they not continually screw us on Video Reviews, lol.
Sure they are screwing us……our designated “Video Review Specialist” asked for the day off.
I did say every team should be playing today. Bbq, 4th of july, and baseball go well together.
yeah they should be playing. As frustrating as they are, I still look forward to the game. Also check out the All Star break, 5 days off!
I saw the clip where Ward got picked off first. What the heck was that coach doing? He should’ve been yelling at Ward to get back.
Everyone just doing their part in the race to the bottom
trÅdition
Tell em Steve Dave! Obviously that coach said nothing at all, and it was all on purpose, and it was all so he could show you he doesn’t give a f***. Millennials, am ah rite!
He did clearly say “back back back”
What do you think of packaging Rendon with Ohtani? The Mets perhaps. We’d probably have to throw in someone else. But if they want to go for it this year, Ohtani could put them over the edge.
TBH, it sucks. Counting beans without long term plans (and worse, while going “star crazy”) was exactly what got us into the mess. Dropping Rendon adds no actually useful piece, long term or short term. (Yes, it would free up money, but you can’t just buy your way out of the current mess on the open market, IMHO, because the pieces we really need are not “for sale” openly.).
Whatever happens, I think 3 pieces are needed–ironically, not incompatible with trying to contend in the short term either.
1. Willingness to lose money, even a lot of it, in the short term. The thing that I think was the key to the way Dodgers set themselves up when the new ownership came in was the way they were willing to spend the money. Not necessarily to buy shiny pieces to show off, but to keep or even add bad contracts while augmenting organizational depth. Heck, I was pretty shocked when they traded for players like Matt Kemp for express purpose of adding pieces along with the bad contract, then just release the expensive player they just acquired. Now, we’ve seen a little bit of that, when we saw Minasian dropping bad contracts of Pujols and Upton, but they were not exactly “productive” moves and possibly misguided (does Wade over Upton make much sense given the lack of OF depth?).
2. The premise of 1) is not just about eating money, but willingness to pay high cost short term for long term gains. But this means being able to identify and commit to long term pieces, ie have a long term plan and be able to stock to it. This gets back to the oft-repeated point about POBO. POBO is not just a title, but a commitment by Arte and his gang to cede authority to someone and let him build an infrastructure for the long term goals, with attendant resources, including the freedom to lose tens of millions over a few years (I think this does imply that you keep, if possible, expensive contracts you have if there’s potential short to medium term utility (this applies to Rendon, at least for now) because dumping them would cost long term pieces.) The last bit is exactly why this is not going to happen, btw.
3. Even if there’s a commitment to a long term plan and a willingness to lose a lot of money in support of it, what’s the guarantee that anything will come out of it in 3, 5, 10 years, if ever? None, really. It’s a risky venture and not many baseball executives are that talented (and even talented ones will screw up sometimes). So we need a long term, risky, and expensive commitment from someone who’s old and notoriously averse to losing money to commit to a scheme that in incompatible with his nature? But the upside is that this will keep the casual fans a bit happier–we sign/trade for whoever and money is no object attitude and all that, while also padding organizational depth and infrastructure, fwiw….
All this losing started to happen when went rendon went down.
All this losing started to happen when Arte ordered Del Taco Tony to trade the farm for Smells
It started with Pujols….and the desecration of the sacred pet cemetery behind the pitchers mound
I think the losing was ensured the moment they signed Rendon and there was no way to fill out the roster with above average major league talent.
Rendon’s awesome.
All of this losing started when Halos Heaven, and then CtPG, became 80% chapped asshole. The baseball gods are toying with us because they are sickos who love the muffled sound of an entitled bitch screaming from the back room she’s locked up in.
Rendon’s hard-hit stats were always good, I think most of the baseball nerds had him projected based on advanced stats at about an 800 ops. Pitchers will actually fear a guy like that. Instead we have a bunch of guys cycling through 3B who are struggling to get to 600 ops. Add in Rendon’s defense, and to me it’s pretty obvious that he was integral to us succeeding early in the year.
Would love to know how much TV viewership has tanked since the the losing streak. Arte has to know people have tuned the team out yet again. Even I skip the games most days and just track Ohtani, transactions and minor league performance.
Also, hilarious how a number of you are saying trade Ohtani/Trout to the Dodgers… do you really think Arte will deal with them after what happened two years ago?
I don’t think any of us think that is realistic. But we are frustrated, not only b/c we are dysfunctional even with Trout and Ohtani, but also because f’ng Dodgers seem to be such a well run franchise in contrast to the mess we have.
Absolutely not lol.
I was just saying I wouldn’t mind him going there.
“…trade Ohtani/Trout” talk is so ignorant and unrealistic. What could a team give for Ohtani? An ace and a Juan Soto type of player? Trout couldn’t be realistically matched in value either. GTFO of her with that nonsensical rhetoric…
We’ll get a compensatory draft choice when he leaves after next season.
which is better?
Don’t be so sure. If the Players and the league agree to international amateur draft this offseason I think the QO goes the way of the dodo bird.
Maybe I’m not optimistic enough hurrrr durrrrr am I doing this right
Need Rev’s take on this… he seemed to be holding out the longest being optimistic with this team but he’s been rather quiet lately (at least from what I’ve seen/followed here, GDT’s are difficult for me to follow due to time difference).
Yeah come on you’re supposed to laugh at people who get upset for thinking something is wrong with this franchise that has the exact same problems every single year.
You know what they say… fool me once? Strike one. Fool me twice? Strike three.
-Michael Scott
It’s clear there’s an umpire conspiracy in regard to Ohtani. I say that tongue in cheek, but d@mn how many balls a foot outside are called against Ohtani?
What is up with that?????
Apparently Captain Jack has been DFA’d… while playing a game.
And Adell made yet another bonehead error.
and we got a fantastic prospect!
“This season, Toussaint has a 6.26 ERA in 41 2/3 innings in Triple-A.”
Better known as “Dookie” Toussaint. This dude could never harness his command. Perry digging thru his ex-bosses drawers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGUgtebFVQE
Wow. Once in a while, as I’d mess around with my kids, I’d say hoo-hoo-ha-ha-tookie-tookie. I totally forgot where I got that from until now.
That’s good news about Mayfield. We should have let him go a year ago. Need to cut bait on these .200 hitters.
Remember that one season we started 27-17? Oh wait…was that this season?