The Angels enter August with a totally different team than the one that entered July. New hitters, new pitchers, and in the middle of a huge opportunity to gain games in the playoff races. Just as the deadline came and went, Perry made one last move, getting yet another reliever for the middle of the bullpen as Bachman was moved to the 60 day IL.
Patrick Sandoval was not going to have an easy time, as the Braves was the best offense in the NL AND they had their ace on the mound so he would have to be practically perfect. He wasn’t, going 5 innings, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits, striking out 3 and walking 4.
And the ace of the Braves showed that he was indeed an ace, keeping the Angels to only 1 run in 6 and 2/3 innings, meaning the Angels were losing heading into the last third of the game. Maybe, if the bullpen was able to shut down this offense again they could have a chance.
Yet that was not the case as Webb shit the bed, giving up 3 runs in the 7th and let the game get away. It was an expected loss, sure, but one that stung bad due to how close it was until it was not.
Highlighted Recap
The Braves scored first in the 1st on a sac fly.
Neto did tie it up in the 5th, however with an RBI groundout.
Alas, Sandy gave that run right back by allowing Harris II to be the first lefty to hit a home run off of him since August 2021.
The Angels had their chances but couldn’t score in the 6th and 7th. But the Braves could, hitting a home run off of Webb in his 2nd inning.
And another.
It was rather unfortunate as that was the last scoring of the game, with former Angel Raisel shutting the door. Maybe a salary dump wasn’t the smartest idea, ARTE.
Upcoming
Morning game tomorrow at 9:20 AM. After that the Angels will head home to face the Mariners for 4 games as we enter the final 2 months of the season. At least Toronto lost.
We knew that was gonna be a tough game. But damn, that was tough.
Strider – arguably the most dominant pitcher in MLB right now – was originally a 35th round pick in the 2017 draft by the Indians (did not sign).
He was then drafted in 2020 by the Braves in the 4th round! #126 overall. To put that in perspective, the Angels took Werner Blakely with their 4th round pick in 2020 at 111.
Anyone who thinks that drafting is a perfect science should think again.
By the way – some dreaming – can you imagine if the Angels had drafted Detmers AND. Strider?!
You know the Angels drafted Buster Posey in the 50th round of the 2005 draft but , alas, he did not sign.
He must have been intimidated by Premium.
Too soon
2/3rds of the way through the season. At this pace we’d win 84. Somehow we have to pick up 6 extra wins to go 34-20 instead of 28-26. That might be impossible
I believe! *flaps arms furiously*
Look forward to Seeing you on thursday B.D.
https://twitter.com/SaltLakeBees/status/1686554378487160832
Bal Doquin?
Still Too Soon
Went to a Braves Angels game last July 2022 and Atlanta might have the best park in baseball. Seriously. The battery area that surrounds the stadium is beyond amazing and the way it leads into the park is just awesome. Before I thought you could only have a great stadium if it was in a downtown type area like petco with the gaslamp or wrigleyville. But Atlanta is in the middle of a corporate parking lot yet dare I say it’s better than petco? Yeah, maybe. Anyways it gave me hope that one day Angel stadium can be that awesome if done right. I always thought Angel stadium a lost cause as a truly great fan experience since it’s just in the middle of a big parking lot. Atlanta showed me that’s not a hindrance at all. Literally just copy the battery exactly. Aesthetically my 2 favorite stadiums are in PNC in Pittsburgh and pac bell in SF but after going to Atlanta it’s up there and without being next to a river or ocean or in the middle of a downtown. And let’s win the series tomorrow.
You’ve mentioned 3 stadiums that I haven’t been to so I can’t comment, but out of the venues I have visited, I like San Diego’s A LOT. In fact, I love it there.
Common Perry W. This Schanuel kid is a hitting machine lol
“Back-to-back three-hit games for Nolan Schanuel!”
https://twitter.com/trashpandas/status/1686563937012056066?t=jF65RX8Uz-EHghHhcTSykA&s=19
Would love a majority young team in 2024. Let them develop and become a home grown team. That’s my dream.
It will be beautiful
C – O’Hoppe/Thaiss = homegrown
1B – Schanuel = homegrown
2B – Drury = grew up an Angels fan, close enough
SS – Neto = homegrown
3B – Rengifo = kinda homegrown
LF – Moniak = kinda homegrown
CF – Trout = homegrown
RF – Ward/Adell = homegrown
DH – Ohtani = homegrown 😜
SP – Ohtani/Detmers/Sandoval/Canning/Silseth = homegrown
RP – Soriano – Joyce – Bachman = homegrown
O’Hoppe is kinda Homegrown as much as Moniak.
I know. We traded Marsh, who was homegrown, for O’Hoppe straight up. Add in Thaiss and it’s close enough lol
But.. but.. Arte wastes all the money on big splashes that always fail! Don’t you read the experts here?
I still remember our home grown infield of Jack Howell, Dick Schofield, Mark Mclemore and Wally Joyner.
It didn’t last long but I always thought it was so cool.
2008 was a special year – (100-62) – of homegrown infield talent:
Mike Napoli/Jeff Mathis, Casey Kotchman ➡️ Mark Teixeira, Hitman Howie Kendrick (my personal fave), Erick Aybar, Chone Figgins, Mighty Maicer Izturis
Mouse Tits was not home grown.
Assuming Mouse Tits is Tex ? You are 100% right.
We traded the Kotchman, who was homegrown, for him and Kotch didn’t finish the season with us. Just decided to type out the 2008 infield at that point, but left out Brandon Wood for obvious reasons.
Mouse Tits was Maicer.
Great nickname game back then.
Napoli = Nipples
Izturis = Mouse Tits
Kendrick = HK47
Mathis = Premium
Man, HH was fun back then – this place is fun too but it was different back then. Rev running the OG HH was a different beast.
Ahhh shoot totally forgot, thank you!
I was also 13 at the time, so yea lol.
Rev’s HH was something different 😂
Wait – you were 13 in 2008? So 28 now?
Kendrick was also RK-47. Had a knack for hitting into rally killing double plays. At least that is what we thought at the time, before we experienced the true GIDP machine, known as Pujols.
My GF at the time used to refer to Macier as “The Rat”, haha
The rat was was Pedroia.
Maicer was also “Boy King” as he looked quite like a Pharaoh.
Mighty Mouse, Micetits & Boy King. He had a few interchangeables.
PANTHER. Man I’ll never forget, coming on HH in the midst of a losing 2006 season looking for some insight and clarity and realized we all wanted Orlando Cabrera for the all star game. Also, some girl highfived me for wearing the OG halos heaven panther shirt at a game once
I will never forgive the umps for giving the yankees
the advantage on every damn ball & strike call that playoff series. I’ll be perpetually bitter about it.
I think you mean 2009 2008 we went down to the Chowds in 4 games.
There was so many things wrong with the 2009 ALCS. The Umpires and the League were bound and determined to get the Skanks & AFraud to World Series . Bad Umpire calls as well as a ridiculous off day schedule that ensured that CC Sabathia could pitch in almost every game .
Of course it didnt help that Brian Fuentes had to groove AFraud on an 0-2 pitch for a Yankee RF Pop up when we had that game won.
Yes, 2009. I was so p*ssed off I almost stopped watching baseball.
I stopped watching the NBA in the late 1990’s when I watched the league blatantly screw the Utah Jazz against the Bulls in back to back finals. I know we were all supposed to worship “Air Jordan” – which naturally made me dislike him even more.
The representation was cool. The losing was not.
100% correct lol. Fun to watch but the team results were nothing to write home about.
I’m enjoying the early bake off between my guy Matt Shaw and Perry’s guy Schanuel. Shaw went two picks later to the Cubs. He’s at high A playing shortstop.
Schanuel: .500/.611/.654
Shaw: .462/.563/.923
Both playing to type/hype thus far. Shaw with the power, Schanuel with the contact.
at 2 different levels.
Schanuel’s own slash is the composite of three different levels – 2/3 of his plate appearances were at ACL or Inland – so it’s not oranges to oranges anyway you look at it.
Small samples – but what’s more interesting is the quality of contact. Shaw is showing loft and power out of the gate – Nolan is hitting GBs and line drives, often down the 1B line.
Pretty close to their scouting profiles.
Do you spend more time/focus on the minors & college baseball than you do with the majors? You appear to be very well informed in that area.
It’s most of what I watch, yeah. I’ve tended to do the farm analysis and draft reporting for CtPG and Halos Heaven before it, going back roughly a decade. I stopped last year due to a new job, and the stage of the Angels farm couldn’t really justify it much anymore.
I don’t have a cable package, but do subscribe to MiLB.tv (the minor league video channel) which more or less defines my priorities. 🙂
Cool, someone’s gotta’ do it. Your research, our benefit.
Thanks.
Yep but ironically his only extra base hits have come in his last 2 AA games against the tougher competition so hopefully that continues to build.
I dont really watch much college, minor league or prospects tape but I have tried to watch Shamwells last few AA games and I definitely see the lack of exit veto so I definitely get your point.
Schanuel also seemed to have a little more speed and athleticism than what I was expecting but hes no burner out there thats for sure.
He has fringe average speed and is a generally smart baserunner, so he’ll get his extra base hits even if his barrel rate is middling.
I still find him an interesting prospect – an extreme contact-oriented first baseman is an unusual profile. He was top of my second tier for that reason. I just have doubts about the game power and his positional flexibility. All of his XBHs have been spray-hitter stuff – but obviously guys like Sean Casey (and, well, Ichiro) made a career of that.
I was hot on Shaw because the team only had one pick in the top 70, so picking an extreme contact hitter who also can play 5-6 positions and projects for power just seemed the clear value play.
He really attacked the baseball on that swing. His hands look fast thru the swing.
.
Dammit, Valdez did it!
Complete game, 95 pitches
You know sometimes a no-hitter leads to a bad streak of pitching. It happened to Detmers last year.
This is true…
That’s the third no hitter that Maldonado has caught.
Angels don’t need Maldonado.
We have Stassi
If only we did, sadly
Who?
When a team’s Ace is shoving, there isn’t much any team can do about that. Rebound tomorrow for the series win.
This. If we can snatch tomorrow, today evaporates from memory.
I just read that Bachman was transferred to the 60 Day, which means we’ll see him sometime in September at best. I was already resigned to the fact that Joyce is done for 23’, but expected to see Bachman soon. That’s a bit of a blow.
We’re really going to need the starters to go at least 6, ideally 7+ moving forward otherwise we’re going to run Soriano,
Lopez, Moore and “Most Interesting” into the ground.
Webb, Loup and Barria basically can’t be trusted in high leverage situations and unfortunately, every appearance is high leverage at this point.
Don’t forget to add the “Dominator” to that low leverage list. 😐
Dominator?
Low leverage?
More like Domino!
High Leverage:
Estevez
Moore
Lopez
Soriano?
Medium Leverage/Keep him away from the Wife and Children
Leone
Loup
Barria
Webb/Devenski
So it looks like Wevenski will be subject to a death match up to determine who will be the lone survivor when Devo returns in a week?
Webb will have a sudden case of sore “I suck” shoulder itis.
Now the Leone trade makes sense
Are we not Devo?
Someone from Asstros is throwing NO-HITTER.
Careful you’ll jinx it
😆
Yes, the Exxon Valdez is throwing a no-hitter.
Over/Under 9.5 LOBsters tomorrow?
Under
Agreed. At least we didn’t continue Strider’s streak of games striking out at least 10.
What does that matter ? We lost the game, lol.
It doesn’t matter, I was just stating a fact you insufferable Angel fan you!
That’s b/c Trout wasn’t playing
Over.
I don’t even care that Webb shit the bed, that’s just a given. The unbelievable lack of situational hitting that still goes on w/this team into the moth of august is just…..stupid?!?! I have no words for the incompetence that goes on w/runners on.
Didn’t expect a sweep so let’s see what team shows up tomorrow.
But Nevin loves the approach!
Well, did not expect to win this one so, not surprised.
I am encouraged by the SP so far. Tomorrow will be a more favorable matchup. Page turn yadayadayada
At least we were in it. Good to see we were not blown out.
Yup. A classic case of the game was closer than the score would indicate. The Braves certainly know that the first two games were dogfights.
Mr. Frost called it. Tip o’ the cap.
Sandoval pitched good enough to win.
Nice to see Grichuk with the hot bat.
Webb needs to take the midnight train from Georgia to SLC.
Webb is the reason why Perry made a play for Leone today. Webb has been worse than Loup this entire month.
Understood. It would certainly help if Philly stops giving the ball to the arsonists
God, I hope Devinski comes back to pre injury form. He’s on rehab I believe.
That would be nice, though I’m concerned that this first two months was fools gold.
Hope I’m wrong.
Get your Hopium in pill form. Just ask your Doctor if Hopium is right for you.
1-1 heading into the rubber game. Could be better, but it could be waaaay worse.
Flush it and move on.
Is Drury back this Friday?
You mean Thursday. It sounded like his rehab assignment game went well today, so, it looks good that he joins his teammates in Anaheim on Thursday.
I assumed Thursday was an off day after this roadie. Ooops.
Sandy was good. Webb was not.
Lets take the series from the best team in baseball tomorrow and keep it rolling.