♫ Morning games… in the middle of the week. ♪
Jaime Barria was back out there, looking to solidify his role as the 6th starter on this Angels team. It was going to be against a White Sox team that recently found their bats, something that Anderson learnt yesterday. He went 5 innings, giving up just 1 run on 4 hits, striking out 6 and walking 3.
Offensively, Mike Trout heard that some people were talking smack and smacked the ball super ultra far. Like, 5th furthest this year, 3rd if you don’t want to count altitude games. Oh and Ohtani hit one too. Because he did not want to be left out. It was the 27th time Troutani has homered in a game. Actually, make that Ohtani’s at number 5 as he had to hit one even further. Or were they?
Highlighted Recap
Angels started the scoring by Mike Trout reminding everyone he is still here and that he reads your comments.
Barria got into a jam in the 2nd and allowed a run on a sac fly. Could have been much worse.
Ohtani did not want to miss out on the action and hit a 2 run bomb himself in the 3rd.
Walsh added on with a bases loaded bloop.
Shohei really wanted to upstage Trout and hot one a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way in the 4th.
Ward got onto the home run train in the 7th.
A single in the 7th did allow another run for the White Sox though.
Chad hit for Ohatni to give him rest and HE hit one a long way.
Walsh then made it 12-2.
The White Sox tried to come back in the 9th but fell short. Angels Win 12-5
Upcoming
Houston series next. Yeah I am scared too. At 30-27, the Angels are solidly in 3rd place in the AL West, and 6th team in the AL to get to 30 wins. Through 57 games in the season and not looking horrible. Yay!
Did anyone call the Blitz in the game thread?
Lana was not there and nobody else seems to have the 2023 version.
If Lana isn’t in the forest when a blitz happens. Did the blitz really happen?
I’m an avowed MLB stat geek so I decided to take a look at our 3-headed catching troika of Thaiss/Wallach/O’Hoppe and their combined offensive numbers are…..tremendous:
AB – 202
Runs – 31
Hits – 57
2B – 9
3B – 0
HR – 11
RBI – 34
BB – 21
SO – 65
SB – 1
BA – .282
OBP – .386
The loss of O’Hoppe sucks, but Thaiss/Wallach have performed incredibly well and this was perhaps our biggest ??? heading into the campaign.
Assuming all options used up, Thaiss may have been DFA’d if O’Hoppe were still playing. So happy for Thaiss that he started to hit consistently and for power. Wallach is a terrific defensive catcher, who seems to be growing ever more comfortable catching Shohei as his designated backstop. Chad’s occasional pop in his bats is welcome surprise, too. I am too lazy to look this up, but the numbers you have listed are probably much better than those of Stassi/Suzuki of last year. Knock on wood to keep both of them healthy for the remainder of the season and hope that they continue to contribute offensively.
A cold corpse from the local morgue had better numbers than Stassi/Suzuki last year.
That’s Matt “Thunder Thaiss” going forward.
Rallymanatee
3 hours ago
Anyone else already call Matt “Thunder Thaiss” or can I take credit for that winner? I’m too GA to look.
thats a .490 slugging pct. making their collective OPS an impressive .876 . Thats similar to the GOAT and Ohtani right now.
Wow. who ever saw that coming?
Would be extremely satisfied with a split in Houston. But imagine winning the first 2 and then think/say/rant ‘season over’ because we din’t close out the series with a victory in the last 2 of the series. Could happen, fingers twisted.
We should be happy with a split, ecstatic with three and over the f’ing moon with the broom….
Detmers on Thursday. Can he have quality start, and then Ohtani, and another quality start from Sandoval, and Canning continue what he has been doing lately? We should be able to win 2 of 4, maybe get lucky and win 3 or 4.
The game tomorrow may be the toughest one to win of the series because it will depend on Detmers, who clearly had his worst outing against Marlins a week ago. He is a fierce competitor, so if he can somehow control his emotions (he should smile more on the mound) and command his pitches, then we may see a game that is decided by bullpen. Since Devenski, Joyce, or Estevez did not pitch today, all of them should be available tomorrow.
Houston has not announced their starters yet. Going by who they have sent as starters in last few games, Framber Valdez should be pitching tomorrow. But, I heard that Houston is considering to go to 6 man rotation, so I do not know who would start for tomorrow’s game. If they use someone from middle relievers or from their minors, Valdez then will be pitching against Shohei on Friday.
Astros just lost to the Twins 8-2
That is not good for us ladies and gentlemen. They will be angry and focused tomorrow.
I’d much rather be facing them off a win. Not to mention we have a serious mismatch in the starting pitching dept :
Framber Valdez with a 2.38 ERA and 1.04 WHIP
Reid Detmers with a 4.93 ERA and 1.53 WHIP
Hmmmm… I wonder who will will this matchup ?
It seems like we’re mismatched in most pitching match ups this year Frostie.
And that’s why they play the games.
I’m feeling optimistic about this
series, especially if Troutani
are having an HR duel…..
How much you guys wana bet that if the Astros had beat the Twins 8-2 the line would be “Oh mah gird guyss. The Astros just killed the Twins. They are Hansel Hot right now. We can’t possibly win. Let me keep it real and just tell you we are gonna get swept. They are dominating coming into the series with us. we are all going to die!”
Watching replay – How did the site not meltdown after that first inning failure? Dumb Nevin K-CS DP!
I would have run around with my hair on fire, conniption fits and gone horse-or is it hoarse, well would have it, whichever it is-but alas I was late for our normal standard of play.
We all did our usual harsh criticism of Nevin. The same situation happened few inning later, and at that time, Urshela did the right thing by not swinging and took a walk. But by that time, I think Ohtani 1st home run happened, and we were not as critical of Nevin.
I love Launch Angle. Makes me think of Lunch Angle. Let’s eat!
Anyone else already call Matt “Thunder Thaiss” or can I take credit for that winner? I’m too GA to look.
🏆
This should interesting….Roids on Parade
https://sports.yahoo.com/hbo-announces-barry-bonds-documentary-in-production-205253798.html
BONDS!: The just don’t look at the Red Sox or Yankees story.
I am watching this Phillies/Mets game. One thing is for sure, the Phillies need a POBO. Dombrowski sure as hell didn’t provide the Phillies with enough depth options to lose 60% of their good players to injury so he’s a total asshole and an idiot. That whole thing where having a #24 defense isn’t exactly working for them either. stupid Dumbo. Wait. He is a POBO? which is totally different than a GM.
Then they need to get a real baseball man for the POBO spot and not an ownership lacky.
I looked, the horrible Angels defense is ranked 11th.
He should been fired last year for not winning the World Series . Good luck ever getting back there.
Shohei made a rare Q&A session with Japanese media on a day he did not pitch:
Q: You had three home runs in past two days. How do you feel about your batting now.
A: I feel that I am making correct contact with pitches that are in the zone. The walk I got at 4th at bat indicates that I am tracking pitches well.
Q: You had Urshela write some words on your bat and your batting coach to sprinkle coffee on your bat to “awake” your batting. Did you do something different this time.
A: Yesterday batting coach did sprinkle coffee on my bat, but nothing new today. (I suspect he was too embarrassed to bring up the true Slump Buster aka Mark Gracey method.)
Q: What makes the difference when you have good hitting mechanics as opposed to bad ones?
A: I think it starts from how I hold my bat, where I grip the bat and the position in the batter’s box which would allow me to track pitches.
Q: It appeared that you were late with high fast balls. Do you think you are now better handling them?
A: I think it was due to bad positioning of my bat, which led to bad transition and bad swings.
Q: You seem to be lowering the center of you body by sitting lower in the box.
A: I do sit low when I desire to use my lower body and legs. But if I do that, I often lose balance. It is always going back and forth between standing high, sitting low, and somewhere in between. As far as good feel at bat is concerned, it started from yesterday, but I find it difficult to maintain the good feel. I think that is the most difficult part of batting requiring constant fine tuning once I lose the good feel.
“i figured something out and i started felling good in the box again the last two games”
my boss’s boss was a D-back fan back in the day and i told him about Grace’s slump buster plan at the turn of the century – it was a bad career move lol
Gotta love the Japanese media. Straight to the point about his slump.
You also gotta give credits to Shohei (and Ippei who does the translation for English speaking media) for answering these insensitive/stupid questions. Rendon would not do that without at least taking a swipe at reporter’s face.
When has Rendon taken a poke at a reporter?
Thanks for the translations. It would appear that the Japanese media asks better questions than the predictable tripe from American mediots.
Really sad I missed this one 🙁
Wonderful to see the offense finally pop off and a solid spot start for Barria. Should use him more, Nevin.
All sending my condolences to gitcho for another bad Tucky D outing.
Tuuckeeeee Deeeeeeee (sob).
With Trout’s career HR #363 today, here is the updated AL West All-Time Home Run Leaderboard:
WLW is good. Saving the better arms of the BP for Texas games isn’t bad either.
LTBU!!
Troutani double-homer day!
https://giphy.com/gifs/dancing-dance-beach-Vm6YGB3Ng8lnW
https://www.ocregister.com/2023/05/31/angels-monitoring-drop-in-velocity-as-chase-silseth-adjusts-to-bullpen/
He also looked ummmm… crappy. That lost looking crappy that usually comes along with being hurt but refusing to admit to yourself that you’re hurt… then comes the incredibly awkward and distracted pitching…. then the getting your balls crushed…. no bueno.
Today –
Bad: Found out my camera gear WASN’T insured like we thought (after I dropped my 2K lens it won’t zoom anymore)
Good: Angels win
Good: Won a PitBoss smoker/grill from a Coca-Cola sweepstakes
Good: Found a way to fix the lens for only $11 bucks
I guess it’s a good day.
That’s a day of victory right there baby!
Buy a Lottery ticket!
Is it doesn’t work, buy a $11 Scratcher.
They played against a pitcher with a 6+ ERA, and actually hit and scored like it.
A split with the bangers in Houston would be sweet.
Ohtani had hits! Walsh had hits! Moniak had hits! Ward had hits! Keep on warmin those bats up boys!
Barria is delicious dipped tacos! Lookin good. It gives me hope that Canning and Barria are lookin good. Why? Because this blah season becoming meh counts on Sandoval/Anderson/Detmers pitching better. I like that situation more than counting on Toussaint, Blotto, Blippo and Ouchahrm pitching well.
A trade still looks needed, but it will be far less pointless than when we demanded trades in the past.
Houston. Not to be a total dick but is there anyway Alvarez can suffer a painless injury that prevents him from playing baseball for a few days?
How’s everyone’s PTSD/ED/IBS at this point? Yordan Alvarez doesn’t care. He has no compassion for Donkey…. in fact no one but Donkey has all that much compassion for Donkey cause Donkey’s is more than enough.
May is over, the May that Sad Donkey’s assured me would be the finish of this season that Sad Donkey declared “over” after game 1. We are 3 games over .500? I’ll take it. Now we get into a June that’s full of important division games and weaker other teams. My official Pollyanna hope bar is raised to being SIX games over .500 at the end of June.
Dear Texas. Remember who you are and suck it.
saying Ohtani had hits is like saying Pamela had tits.
Your really need to measure them to understand what we are talking about here.
Speaking of measurements, I am not here to cause controversy but the second Shohei’s home run was reported to be 478ft at first and then corrected to 459ft, 2ft shorter than Trout’s 461ft homerun. I am sensing Statcast’s anti-Asian tendency here. 😆
But either might be the “All-time AL West Division Home Run Distance record for Wednesday Day Games East of Denver”
If that’s the case, I will be reading about it in Japanese newspaper tomorrow morning. Anything to do with Shohei and records is an instant click bait there.
Didn’t have to wait till tomorrow. They just reported that since Statcast started, this is the first time that two Angels players hit home runs in the same game both of them longer than 450ft. They also managed to add the distance of all three homeruns by the two players and declared 1345ft being the longest ever by Troutani. They are getting out of control.
Are they sacrificing to Jobu, or saying “F*** you, Jobu! I do it myself!”?
Just another series win!
Go Halos!!