Good morning Angels fans, have some links!
Angels News
The Angels did not blow it last night. In fact, they one hit the Nats. And exhale.
In this game, Logan hit yet another home run. The youngest opening day catcher in Angels history is now in the lead for DINGRZ for the team.
Mike Trout made history with him now being the Angels leader in runs at the Big A. GA will have to settle for 2nd.
Canning will be pitching tomorrow, his first start since 2021. A non Ohtani righty?! Is that lEgal?
Around Baseball
Marlins finally have a player hit for the cycle! They are only 26 years old so it isn’t too surprising. Good for them.
In Canada, ballpark changes have occurred. Do you like it more than the old one?
The Rays still haven’t lost. Hax! I call hax!
Mariners blew it in a way not seen in over 20 years. HAHA!
Ian Anderson Tommy John. Oof.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
1 run victory for the Nationals today.
Halos finish home stand with a disappointing 2-4 record.
Of course, I hope I am wrong.
Your hope has become a reality
Thank you for the proper spelling of DINGRZ
If you insist on using pictures of that Samurai HR helmet here on CtPG at least use the historically correct version which is now being used by the players.
ACT CHEW ELEEEE….
Currently 2 and 3 on the home stand. Really need to win this one to go even and hit the road at 2 over .500.
Won’t be easy against Gore.
Agree. It won’t be easy. And in fact I am predicting a loss by the Angels.
It will be a 1 run loss. I see it being either 4-3 Nationals or 5-4 Nationals. The bullpen may or may not be involved in the loss, but I think Gore will pitch well..I think we’ll get a couple runs when Gore leaves the game, but by that time we’ll be trailing 3-1 or 4-1.. Maybe 4-2.
Ohtani is not playing today, so that doesn’t help either. That said, I do think he needs the rest and the day off.
So. To be clear. You are predicting a one run loss today.
That wasn’t just Cub fans making all that noise. Laughing my ass loudly.
Eat it Jerry!
https://twitter.com/HawleySports/status/1645956678255353859?s=20
That’s cool.
That picture of Trout with the homerun hat needs to be on a t shirt so they can take my money.
Of all the years not to play the A’ss 19 times.
I suspect that the reason the Mariners Astros & A’s may not be as good this year is they dont get to play us 19 times.
I hope that’s not it.
thought about the same but along with all the AL West too.
it’d be good to have played19 against Astros w/o Altuve
and yeah especially the A’s
Yeah, the Astros are obviously finished. (Looks around to make sure the Astros aren’t anywhere near by listening. Laughs nervously.)
I couldn’t find the Rays, then OMG, there they are!
Samesies
we’re good at pitching?
only four AL teams are better?
who knew?
Getting a “fact checker” on this. Must be fake news. It’s the same henchmen that give us the attendance numbers…Evil Arte.
When did Andrew get control of this grid?
It’s funny, that’s pretty much where I thought the team would be most of the year, kind of shifting back and forth a little according to how hot the bats are. Trading places with Texas if the pitching has a better than expected season. Hoping the AssTros and Semen don’t get hot. Improved but not eating a champiham sandwich in April.
Friggin Rays. Suck it AL EAST.
we will score even more and battle Texas for the West, but i’m not sure our pitching will continue at such an “elite” level. (maybe, but not much better)
I think we’ll pass back and forth across that black line a time or few.
Projected starting lineup for today:
Ward CF
Trout DH
Rendon 3B
Renfroe RF
Drury 1B
Rengifo LF
Urshela SS
Thaiss C
Fletcher 2B
Canning P
Let’s see how close I get to Nevin Nevin Land.
My money is on Phillips in CF hitting 8th. Not sure who will be in charge of the HR helmet?
I’m in on Phillips too. Why play Renjifo out of position when currently both his bat and defense suck? Phillips is a really solid defender who also can’t hit.
Rengifo has played enough OF that he can hold down the fort every once in a while. He’s played almost every day, could probably use a day off. Besides he isn’t hitting.
I was thinking that he had come around in his approach at the plate but after watching him regress am now rethinking that. I would love to think he had figured it out but the evidence suggest otherwise.
Eh. One thing has pretty much always held true. Rengifo will sometimes look like total crap. Then you look him up on bref and, without you really noticing, he’s worth 2 WAR and hitting OK.
Base model KIA.
I’m not so sure in matters as It appears that Rengifo can’t play any position well enough to be considered out of position.
The only thing I feel confident in Rengifo doing, is going back on a popup in-between the OF and INF, which isn’t a position.
Trailblazer, creating a position.
Why play Rengifo at all? Ever?
I’d put Phillips in center too. Who knows how much contact Canning will give up (or the bullpen if Canning exits early)
If they aren’t going to play Phillips on an off-day for an OF, then there is no need to have him on the roster at all.
We need a Hat Coat check guy….
We could use Loup or Tepera?
They’d lose the hats and coats
This is true. Also, playing him every 11th game until someone get hurt and then we bring up an MiLB guy is just about as much Phillips as we want. If he does manage to hit, bonus.
Phillips it is, batting 9th. Drury at 1b
O’Hoppe playing behind the plate today.
Nevin staying with a hot bat…tough kid.
I agree that Wantz should have stayed with the club. I think both Tepera and Loupy Lou should be released. I do not point the finger at PTP on signing them, they are victims of the Halo Curse. Come to Anaheim as a Free Agent and you lose your Mo-Jo. Why does it happen? It’s just trAdition and it makes no sense, no cents, no since. They both could go to other teams and turn it around.
While I think Wantz has been one of our best relievers, he will be back. Loup and Tepera will be gone in May unless they can turn things around.
Wantz will be back after the 15 day minimum. That’s probably the amount of days Tepera and Loup have to get it together. Or find out they suddenly have a mysterious back injury they didn’t know about. It’s time to see more Moore and find if he’s turned into a frog after last season. Don’t remember a BP where nobody really has a defined “unbuttered roll”.
Can Wantz come back up sooner if a pitcher goes on the IL?
Wantz can come back sooner than 15 days, we just need one of the bullpen stiffs to develop a phantom injury. So who are we rooting for?
Loup…spinal. Plenty of leftover left handers.
https://youtu.be/GP_0BhCw2rg
Loup
I will bet you 10,000 Pickle’s Nickels that both those guys won’t be DFA by June.
Wantz has been the lone bright spot in the bullpen, Rendon not only lacks common sense – but he’s injury prone as well, the bullpen is bad, O’Hoppe looks to be a steal (and I like Marsh’s game), Walsh needs a witch doctor to stay on the field, Ohtani and Trout are the balls, Suarez is the Dark Knight, the offense is elite, Fletcher may be earning “flash in the pan” status.
Quijada has also been fantastic so far.
Quijada’s first outing was scary but he’s looked good since. Wantz has looked good. Moore has been fine when I’ve seen him.
Loup and Tepera are throwing batting practice, though.
I am happy that the org has a kind of sorting sieve when it comes to the pen. Sure, they’ll likely have to let guys pitch 10-15 innings to see what they have, but at the same time they have solid over all groups of arms in AAA and AA that are also getting their 10-15. So when it’s time to look at the pen (or someone gets hurt) they can actually promote instead of just desperately bringing up Howie Whozat.
And here is where lame AF CtPG guy comments “THAR BO PEN LEAKS LAHK AR SIEVE HAR HUURR HURR DEE DURR!”…. and his care giver smiles without it showing in her eyes and gives him an animal cracker to suck on.
Last week I had finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy, so I went to the library to get something new to read. My heart was set on Jeff Fletcher’s Ohtani book, and the card catalog computer said the book was not checked out, so I wrote down the Dewey info and went to the baseball section, but it wasn’t there.
I hoped that it was just put in the incorrect spot, so I looked through the titles one by one, and I came across an Angels book I didn’t know existed.
It is an autobiography by Bengie Molina called Molina, although the subtitle says the book is about his dad. It is a good read. There was a lot of familial love in Bengie’s childhood. The descriptions of what it was like to grow up in Puerto Rico are interesting.
Bengie was obsessed with baseball as a little kid (his dad was a local baseball legend), and his lifelong dream was to be drafted the summer he graduated from high school.
To his shock and dismay, it didn’t happen. So now I’m at the part where he borrows some money to go to America to attend a junior college in Arizona, without knowing any English and having just $20 to his name, in order to play baseball and pray that a scout notices him.
There were some interesting moments in that Molina book. He’s open about not liking Terry Collins (not many did during his Astro and Angel Managing days did) and claims he had to call out Orlando Cabrera in game for showing his disgust against the Angel starting pitcher.
I had heard similar things but a friend of mine who played for him in both the minors and majors liked him a lot. He said that he rubbed some guys the wrong way as they got tired of his intensity to win. Seems that he picked his spots better as he aged.
Nice. I didn’t know about it.
Good morning to all this morning. Remember the getaway game today is at 1pm. I bet this will be a Trout rest game.
Trout has been oddly unclutch so far this young season.
Yeah, but I’m pretty comfortable with betting he lights up eventually. There’s been a lot of unclutch so far this year in this line up, and yet we are not 4 games under .500. This is the type of team I expect to have a winning streak at some point because if the pitching just gets slightly hotter, or the hitters get slightly more clutch for a few games you can pile up some wins.
I’m going to say a Trout DH game. since Ohtani and O’Hoppe will get the rest. That means Thaiss and Phillips will be starting lineup.
Good luck with that.
There is a Unicorn in the house. Someday when that Unicorn can’t Unicorn any longer and he becomes what a Unicorn becomes after the horn goes away, our Unicorn will simply turn into the best pitcher in the league for years to come. Again, last night he did not have his best stuff and figured out how he was going to win. Shohei is just delightful to watch pitch. I think Trout needs to turn it up 2 notches to be in the MVP conversation.
https://twitter.com/PlaysAngels/status/1645968942316527616
🤣
this is great
😂
You can tell he was totally scarred by that experience cause he’s Baby Deer Japanese Baseball Jesus and we always need to worry about him.
Reality. The day that Poet Warrior Anthony Rendon grabbed that fan Ohtani was probably listening to that guy run his mouth thinking “Fk that candy ass piece of shit.” in Japanese.
The key for today’s game is “Welcome Back” by John Sebastian.
My memories are still ablaze with the potential Griffin Canning possessed before the stress fracture in his back shut him down. The top teams don’t have to worry if they go through a patch of mediocrity at the beginning of the season because they are going to dominate for the majority of the season and cruise to a playoff spot, but for a team like the Angels who dream of having just enough wins to claim a wildcard spot, every loss makes that wildcard dream less likely.
I’m glad Canning is healthy and he’s back here where we need him 🎶
https://youtu.be/OK4_fDHv-SQ
Go Sweathogs! Hoping Griffin “Horshack“ Canning can go at least 5 and maybe a spot in the starting rotation going forward.
Sending Wantz down beause he is the only one with options hurts the team.
DFA one of those guys that sucks…they will clear waivers if they’re that bad.
Wantz, Quijada, and Estevez have been the Angels’ best relief pitchers. If making the playoffs is the goal, you don’t option Wantz.
Well when only 2 of your 9 bullpen pitchers have options left this is what happens.
It’s pretty obvious, and I’m pretty certain that the FO knows it, that at some point a couple of those 7 pitchers will be moved off the roster. It’s just not something they’re gonna do on April 9th when the MiLB guys are all still breaking in their new cleats.
But by June? It really even could be Loup if Davidson/Quijada/Rosenburg look like they could hold down the lefty side. Same with Tepera if he assplodes. They’d have to eat some contract, but not a ton, and the guys they are bringing up are cheap. I think only Estevez and Moore are safe long term.
Teams shift guys around. This might be a one or two day thing for Wantz. But I will agree it is odd that Wantz was arming up in the ninth last night as the alternative to Estevez if there was a problem last night. Today he’s being sent down.
It’s purely because he has options and it’s too early to DFA anyone.
This. This is not a smart idea at all.