LA Angels Thursday News Crash: Burdi’s the Word

Zach Gallen hit a bird with a pitch, so now Randy Johnson is not the only one. In other news, the Rays selected the contract of pitcher Zach Burdi.

Phil Nevin says Tucker Davidson is fine after being hit by that Orioles double on Tuesday. This article features Angels quotes about getting Shohei Ohtani into the postseason. Says Tyler Anderson, “You can’t eat an elephant all at once. You gotta eat it one bite at a time. The season’s one big elephant. You’re just trying to take it down, you know?” Good to know. I’m not sure I’ll be eating any elephants, but the advice is appreciated. People are saying Carlos Estevez is good, so at least there is that.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. will miss four to six weeks with turf toe. Here is a veritable cornucopia of injury reports.

Pitcher Injuries

Wade Miley is on the 15 day IL with a lat strain. Mason Miller of the As is shut down with a mild UCL sprain. Dustin May left a game early with elbow pain.

Umpires

Hats off to the long suffering youth umpires. This one saved a poor kid from ending up in the land of OZ. Then again, this youth umpire applied a choke hold on a deputy sheriff and ended up in jail. I guess there are limits.

Aaron Boone got himself ejected for arguing balls and strikes. (video) Yankee or not, you are not in charge of the umpires unless you are a deputy sheriff.

Photo credit: Rex Fregosi

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smithy610
Super Member
1 year ago

Is Trout’s recent struggles at missing fastballs an exaggerated outrage, or a legitimate concern? You be the judge:

https://www.ocregister.com/2023/05/17/angels-mike-trout-searching-for-answers-to-rare-extended-slump/

“I’m just a tick under them or a tick late,” Trout said.

Entering Wednesday’s game, Trout had whiffed on 28.6% of his swings at fastballs this season, which is the highest rate of his career. Last year was the first season that Trout was ever higher than 20%. The major league average whiff rate on fastballs is 20.1% this season.

During Trout’s current slump, his whiff rate at fastballs is 29.3%, which is only slightly worse than what he was in April. The difference is that he’s seen more fastballs. Pitchers have thrown him a fastball 70.7% of the time in May, compared with 64% in April.

Trout was hitting .247 with a .484 slugging percentage on at-bats that end with a fastball, compared with the major league averages of .268 and .442.

Trout’s performance against breaking balls (.292 and .521) and offspeed pitches (.375 and .438) has been better than average, which has helped him stay afloat.

All of that raises the question of whether Trout is simply losing the ability to catch up to fastballs that get harder every year.

MarineLayer
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to  smithy610

It feels like he’s now just a tick old, and on the way down. It’s a very high place from which he is descending.

Senator_John_Blutarsky
Legend
Reply to  smithy610

Until he solves it, it’s a concern.

halofansince1978
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to  smithy610

Think is he will get hot and it will be impressive.

halofansince1978
Super Member
1 year ago

Told Ya!!!

Angelz4ever
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to  smithy610

Trout’s rare killing of a high fastball yesterday hampers your hypothhh…hypohthh……..point.

Angelz4ever
Super Member
1 year ago

In other news: Dylan Bundy was recently ejected from a AAA game due to using a foreign substance.

FungoAle
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  Angelz4ever

Probably the same stuff he was using here in Anaheim

Angelz4ever
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to  FungoAle

That’s terrible considering the results.

halofansince1978
Super Member
1 year ago

Today’s lineup:

Moniak
Trout
Ohtani
Renfroe
Drury
Wallach
Rengefo
Neto
Soto

Anderson

Halo Power Baby!!

Guest
1 year ago

Here are stats for each player’s last seven games, although for Moniak, it is only for his last four games:

Moniak .417 BA / 2 XBH / 1 BB

Trout .200 BA / 2 XBH / 3 BB

Ohtani .259 BA / 4 XBH / 4 BB

Renfroe .269 BA / 3 XBH / 3 BB

Drury .192 BA / 1 XBH / 0 BB

Wallach .363 BA / 2 XBH / 0 BB

Rengifo .105 BA / 0 XBH / 1 BB

Neto .208 BA / 3 XBH / 0 BB

Soto .170 BA in 30 games in the minors this year

If we’re going with the hot hand batting order philosophy, Neto and Wallach should be hitting higher up in the order and Trout should be batting ninth.

halofansince1978
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to 

Trout in the ninth spot…scary!!!

RexFregosi
Super Member
1 year ago

sends him a message lol

Mikeal1st
Trusted Member
1 year ago
Reply to  RexFregosi

 😂 

Angelz4ever
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to 

So we trade Trout and keep Moniak?

Guest
1 year ago
Reply to  Angelz4ever

No. I’m sure Trout will snap out of it. He always does. But for the time being, he should be dropped in the line up until he is once again productive at the plate.

MarineLayer
Super Member
1 year ago

It feels like Ward has been playing his way out of the lineup for a while. On top of his wonky hitting, he’s looking very shaky on defense, which is traditional for our left fielders.

Cowboy26
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  MarineLayer

And according to Fan Graphs Ward has one option left . The Angels might be sending him down to the Great Salt Lake until Moniak runs out of steam

Twebur
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Free Mickey!

FungoAle
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Sending Ward down and keeping Phillips on the roster is grounds for immediate expulsion of the front office

Cowboy26
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  FungoAle

At least we’ll know if impeachment proceedings can commence on Perry by this weekend if Walsh says hes ready to return.

FungoAle
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Great news to get Walsh back in there for his defense alone

Twebur
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  FungoAle

Ahhh….the mysterious Phillips. Rengifo’s late inning OF defensive replacement and hat wrangler. At least they don’t let him play.

FungoAle
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  Twebur

Hat wrangler…LOL. Yippee-ki-yaaa! Autry would have been so proud.

Angelz4ever
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

It worked for Kendrick.

Angelz4ever
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to  MarineLayer

We’ve had LFers the last couple of years?

GrandpaBaseball
Legend
1 year ago

Good morning to all, East Coast get-away games are brutal as they are too early imho. Thankfully spared yesterday’s loss as I was doing the going to the Doctor stuff. I got good news, no TJS for me and the team can sign me up for Bullpen duty 😂 

This Orioles team is good, but going 2-2 against them would be kool. Any day now we will go on a winning streak, it is written in the stars-how do I know, the 8 Ball told me so and who am I to disagree I say. But the real truth is because this team is too good to fail.

Walsh could return sometime this weekend, which is a great thing as he has been hitting the cover off the ball in AAA. I hope I make the game with you folks today, so see you then. 😀 

Fansince1971
Legend
1 year ago

“because this team is too good to fail.”

Depends on what your definition of failure is. If 81-81 is failure- I disagree with you. If 81-81 is success- I agree with you.

Twebur
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

Too bad .500 won’t get you into the playoffs. It will be hard for all that talent to overcome the bad defense, bad pitching #18 4.39 team era. Don’t see many prolonged winning streaks with this group, too many deficiencies.

The positives, looks like we have a legitimate, maybe a stud, SS and Catcher. Still hope we have a good amount of cheap cost effective pitching talent that’s on the way.

Doubt restless evil Arte will go many more seasons without getting rid of PTP. I’m sure he already has his eye on some “rising through the system assistant GM” somewhere that he can hire on the cheap. It will be interesting to see the organizational backlash for not getting anything for Shohei. Unless they really do crater before the deadline and do actually do trade him.

With that amount of talent .500 baseball is sad.

MarineLayer
Super Member
1 year ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

Success is at least making the playoffs. Failure is missing them.

Fansince1971
Legend
1 year ago
Reply to  MarineLayer

Then I think this season is more likely than not going to be a failure by that metric. I believe it will be a success from the better than last season metric.