Today we had Reid Detmers against Ben “Don’t Call Me Blake” Lively. (Edit: Too late. Mark Langston just called him Blake Lively on countdown to first pitch.) Were we able to avoid the sweep? No. This game was kind of a bummer. I don’t have a lot of highlights to show you.
Detmers gave up a single and a couple of walks in the first two innings but did not allow a run. Taylor Ward walked in the first becoming the only Angel on base through two.
The second time through the Guardians order, Detmers almost gave up a home run to Tyler Freeman before getting him out, and then he hit Andres Gimenez in the head with a pitch. He walked a couple of guys bracketed around a successful double steal by the Guardians. Johnathan Rodriguez doubled in two runs. 2-0 Guardians.
Luis Guillorme managed to get a single in the bottom of the third inning but the Angels couldn’t score. In the top of the fourth inning, Detmers retired the Guardians in order. Taylor Ward drew a four pitch one out walk. Kevin Pillar grounded into a double play to end the inning.
In the top of the fifth inning, Andres Gimenez singled. Other than that the Guardians did nothing. Detmers got through five innings at least. Two Angels strikeouts later, Zach Neto busted out a bunt single for the Angels second hit of the game. Matt Thaiss tied it up with a homer. 2-2 ballgame.
Luis Guillorme singled on a jam shot to shallow right field. Unfortunately, Nolan Schanuel struck out.
Onward to the sixth inning! Reid Detmers gave up a single and was promptly replaced by Adam Cimber who got Gabriel Arias to line out before issuing a couple of walks to load the bases. He hit Tyler Freeman on an 0-2 pitch to make it 3-2 Guardians. Andres Gimenez singled to make it 4-2 Guardians and leave the bases loaded for Jose Ramirez. What the heck happened to Adam Cimber?
Matt Moore came in to replace Adam Cimber. He walked Ramirez on four pitches and drew some very audible boos from the crowd. 5-2 Guardians. He struck out two to end the top of the sixth. The Angels, for their part, went three up and three down on only seven pitches.
We had a sighting of the elusive Roansy Contreras in the seventh inning today. He retired the Guardians in order. The Angels started hitting the ball in the air for their outs. Outs are outs though. We ended the seventh with the score still 5-2 Guardians.
Carson Fulmer came in for the eighth inning. Tyler Freeman singled, stole second, and advanced to third on a crappy throw. Zach Neto gunned him down at the plate on a fielder’s choice. Jose Ramirez hit what would have been a home run, but Jo Adell appeared to rob him. An umpire review determined that Adell made the catch.
Logan O’Hoppe came in to pinch hit for Matt Thaiss. He struck out. Kyren Paris pinch hit for Luis Guillorme. He also struck out. Nolan Schanuel doubled to right center. Luis Rengifo singled on a liner to left and made it 5-3 Guardians.
Taylor Ward got a quick base hit to right center. Kevin Pillar got a hit into left field and made it 5-4.
Jo Adell struck out swinging at ball four.
Carson Fulmer polished the Guardians off on seven pitches in the ninth inning. Logan O’Hoppe got a two out single to bring up pinch hitter Willie Calhoun who grounded out. The Angels lost this game 5-4.
Here are the Reid Detmers strikeouts for the day.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Another source for comedy has said good-bye
https://x.com/BRWalkoff/status/1795270665442091200
This should be a national holiday!!!!
What’s even more funny is that MLB had to pay Hernandez to retire. Essentially he was the beyond incompetent at his job to gain the most financial leverage to retire/resign. He thoroughly beat the system.
I think every team would be more than willing to chip in to see him gone.
The MLBPA likely would too
Lasted 3 decades, that long and being that bad, he should get some kind of award.
Flying Fickle Finger of Fate?
Didn’t he become the commissioner of that Blind Beep Baseball League that Twebs told us about. `;~}}
Yep…he got paid to get canned.
Let’s not forget that fat pension.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/much-maligned-umpire-ángel-hernández-to-retire-from-major-league-baseball/ar-BB1n9NGL
now I feel sorry for him.
No memorial day game or links, what a bummer.
We seem to not play on Memorial Day the last several years?
You would think MLB would want a full schedule on this holiday.
Agree, it’s dumb that any team has Decoration Day off.
I don’t recall, but if that is the case, that sucks.
How can there be no baseball on Memorial Day?
Mlb is ran by a commie
Our home record: 6-19
NYY coming in then…
SD, one of the better road teams at 17-10 then…
HOU, maybe a series we can take then…
MIL, another good team and better road team then maybe some relief in OAK coming to town a month from now where we very easily could be 9-28 (which would actually be an improvement from our current .240 win percentage at home).
Cosmic Baseball…great if you’re a third grader.
manfraud nonsense never ceases to amaze me.
https://www.mlb.com/news/cosmic-baseball-black-lights-tri-city-chili-peppers-2024
I already know what you’re going to say.
The 3rd graders are exactly who we want.
Just read an article asking, “What could have been with Acuna Jr?”
You got to feal bad for the guy and we know all about that…MNT!!
https://www.mlb.com/news/impact-of-ronald-acuna-jr-s-injury-on-baseball
Yep.
It is now three out of four seasons that he has missed significant time due to injury. And there is not a more talented player in the game who is not named Ohtani.
Who knows how he will come back. The difference to Trout is of course that Acuna is much younger.
The only drama left is whether we finally eclipse the 100 loss barrier. I say yes. Well done, Arturo and Minisian.
It will be a typical Angel season. Trout and Rendon will return to “full” strength in late July/early August and propel the team to meaningless wins when it no longer matters. The team will finish just under 100 losses, and will not draft in the top ten.
So many trAditions…..
The Braves will be motivated to replace Acuna.
Perry & AA are BFF’s tie tot trade him Ward for a prospect haul?
A great idea. I would like to see how Ward would perform in a different uniform. Good dude that I am not sure we get anything more than what we’ve seen already if he were to stay.
Good idea since we aren’t wining anything this year and probably not next, and next year is Ward’s last year I believe. Nothing to lose, hopefully we can get some actual value back.
Uggh. How can you say “probably not next” ? We’ve been through this before. The Kansas Royals lost 106 games last year ! And now they sit at 34-20, 14 games over .500 with a real good shot at the playoffs and even winning the division.
You can’t just write off the next season now matter how poor you are playing in the current one.
This is very true Frosty, but we Aint the Royals
Can’t write off next season? I’m hoping 2027 has a marked improvement.
I’m just being realistic all things considered. I’ll get back to you with this mid season next year. We’re not the Royals and it’s only 1/3 of the way through the season. I’m interested in what you think will be different enough to make us winners next season. We’ll never be able to become competitive long term unless we have a plan. We do not have the minor league talent required for the near term or the money. We will have to do the best we can to acquire minor league talent until we have our own. I want to win as much as you but I do not currently see that path.
all of the crummy teams from when we started going bad have been or will be going to the playoffs. KC’s AAA team is something like 33-15. All of those teams had some plan, a good minor league system. It wasn’t just luck that Baltimore got good, that KC is now playing well.
Agree, but if you look at the Royals, just talent-wise we are better than they are. That said, at the end of the day baseball is about execution. And KC executes alot better than we do, even though our roster from top to bottom is better.
The Braves just lost a top young pitcher to an oblique strain too, so package Anderson too and attempt to pry several of Atlanta’s top 10 prospects.
However, this would be way too smart a move for Perry and Arte.
Hopium says we can hope they do the right thing!!!
Hope has to actually be based on something.
Need to get a lot for Ward. he has 2 more seasons of control after this one and Anderson has one more season after this one of control. TA’s already generated 2.6 WAR (IIRC 1.0 WAR is worth about $7.5 Million?) so even at $13 Million per season dude has already more than paid for himself a third of the way in.
So we better clean their clock.
Clean their clock or simply don’t trade him at all … with an improved/revamped bullpen we could be the 2024 version of the Royals. No need to sell our souls and our future because of a lost season in 2023.
To be fair, we’ve had more than a few “lost seasons” over the past 10 years.
True enough. But that just convinces me that it has to turn around at some point.
So what your saying is we are Due..
Bet the streak to continue overrides the due theory.
As with all wagering, bet only the amount of Eppei bucks you can afford to lose. Always bet with your head, not over it.
With that said, if we just won 3 of 7 home losses on day games and saved just 1 of our complete late inning meltdowns at home, just +4 wins isn’t ridiculous to think about, we’d be 3.5 out of 1st. They could have done those things and stayed within their overall bottom of the league reality. But the entire AL West thus far is horrible. Nothing headed into June indicates this team is remotely close to having a roster capable of competing this year let alone in the years to come, when the Ass’tros, M’s, Rangers all have playoff rosters. Basically look no further than our own division to point out how far removed we are from winning.
I agree with the first couple of sentences you wrote… with a halfway decent bullpen we take 3 out of 4 in Tampa Bay. We also win that series in Boston. We also would have won 2 of 3 at home vs Philadelphia and very likely the home Tampa series… as you suggested that is a big difference in record right there.. oh, and add the extra inning game in Texas and we are not bad at this point.
For the rest of your post, I tend to disagree. Aside from the hitting with RISP problem our offense has talented bats. The problem is keeping them on the field. And the SP has made strides from last year. Soriano and Anderson in particular have proven themselves to be top of the rotation guys.
We need Sandy and Canning to figure things out, not to mention Detmers.
But really, I think if you fix the bullpen we would be ALOT better. And to continue the vibe towards positivity, with Joyce waiting in the wings and who knows, possibly Stephenson we have some solutions. I still feel we’d need to add a couple solid bullpen arms in the offseason. But I don’t think that’s an impossible task.
Man, if a frog had wings and everything went our way. Who is going to rebuild the bull pen next year, the same guy as this year. And this year is not an aberration for Trout and Rendon regarding injuries. You’re right, if we were better than we are, we would have won more games, unfortunately, w’re not, and if Trout wasn’t hurt we might not have as many wins as we do now base on the way he performed and the way his replacements have performed. I’ll just say this and realize we disagree, we do not have talented bats, or at least certainly not enough.
Talented bats :
1) Trout
2) Ward
3) Rengifo
4) O’Hoppe
5) Adell
6) Neto (despite low BA the raw talent is there. I feel very positive about him going forward.)
I have included Trout since we are talking about next season. I also have hopes that Moniak and Adell will show something in the 2nd half this year and start to really establish themselves. However, I will acknowledge your argument/concerns if you are hesitant to buy into either one of these guys. Because they have showed that they can hit MLB pitching I think the optimism is warranted… Thus, I include them in a second tier of “talented” bats. Adell I will put on the list.. Moniak to me is borderline.
Trout has not been an impact beat since 2022, perhaps that will be different next year. Ward is a good hitter but we disagree on how good. Rengifo is a very good hitter right now but has never hit this good in his life. It’s possible he continues. O’hoppe is one of my favorite players but nothing currently close to an impact bat. Adell is declining, we’ll have to see where he ends up at the end of the year. I might have agreed with you on him two weeks ago. Neto looks like he is going to be a very good hitting shortstop but he is not an impact bat. In my opinion, with the current version of Trout, we don’t have an impact bat on the roster. there is a reason why we have only won as often as we have other than pitching.
Talented gloves.
-Neto is a possible Gold Glove candidate in the future.
–I’m 100% sold on Schanuel is at first base. He looks above average to me.
-O’Hoppe defense seems pretty damn good, not knowledgeable enough to give a grade handling the staff and pitch calling.
-Adell, should get better every year. Personally I no longer cringe when the ball is hit in his direction.
-Mickey solid glove
-Rengifo versatility, versatility, better than his reputation
Defense overall is meh +, lots of room to improve (and they should), but that aspect better be excellent in the near future. Defense travels, defense doesn’t slump as often or for very long, great defense can keep us in games.
Yes, and to your last paragraph that is something Washington has already impacted positively. The Angels of Wash are alot better defensively than they were under Nevin.
Last year we finished 25th in Team Defense. This year we have jumped up to 11th.
LMAO…just 2023. Holy shit. A “soft” reset needs to be in the works and deal the guys who will never attain all star status.
Definitely. I’m not sure “getting bent over” is part of the tactic but this is Perry and the stench of last years deadline still looms. .
I think it will be best to split Ward and Anderson up in two separate deals to different locations.
Ummm…. I say no thank you to the Braves.
Spank the Skanks with our Rally Monkey.
Spank the monkey with the rally skank?
I for one, miss Angela.
Really competitive loses we should be happy!
Sano heating pad?
What did he do, fall asleep?
I’m sure there was bacon and beer involved
Photo caption: Angels fan Jeff Spicoli realizes the game makes so much more sense while on shrooms.
Definitely a Spicoli vibe.
Edit:
Photo caption: Angels fan Jeff Spicoli realizes the Organization makes so much more sense while on shrooms.
Rengifo had a couple of nice plays at 3rd. He may be better there – just react, no thinking generally involved.
one game away from 1/3 of the way through and honestly, we just aren’t very good. We don’t pitch well enough to carry our hitting our hit well enough to carry out pitching. We run into too many outs on the bases, we strike out too much and walk too little. We swing at too many bad pitches and take too many good pitches. At this point, Trout and Rendon are hurt annually for significant lengths of time, and we’re not good enough to overcome that either. So far the youngsters are a mixed bag with Neto and O’hoppe looking pretty good and the rest not so much. Mickey has beed a huge disappointment, Schanuel although showing potential and being young, has been awful as a hitter and Adell, who looked good for a while is rapidly declining. We’re talking 53 games, there are 109 left, so plenty of time for improvement. Rengefo continues to make mistakes but also continues to get even better as a hitter. The main thing is where they are at the end of the season. I realize others may not agree, this is just my opinion based on the numbers.
The only thing I think of now when Trout’s name is mentioned is our shared interest in weather and his past greatness. His greatness on the field is likely over, but the weather will continue.
F’ing amazing footage of recent tornados, supposedly these caused no loss life and were very remote.
https://youtu.be/BFXN3X4e5sE?si=d1rr5pMVctQcwxLD
That is a pretty fair assessment of the team thus far.
Another day game of disappointment. TrAdition.
I don’t think that we’ve won a single home day game yet ….
or a home series against ANY team.
pAthetic.
Had a great view of the bullpen from my seats in 305. Paid $27 including fees on StubHub for 3 club level tickets.
Cimber looked great in the bullpen. Was throwing the ball over the plate.
Walked into the game and melted down. This L is on him.
$9 for 3 club level seats including tax and fees for the Sunday game during Memorial Day Weekend?! You may have overpaid!
Just kidding that’s pretty darn great!
I hope Arturo doesn’t get a cut.
A Sweep?
All about the pitching. You can’t go to a full count on every batter and walk the bases loaded, and then expect good results.
It shouldn’t have been as close as it was.
Speaking of pitching, who wants to cry?
What could have been.
Yeah, but then we don’t get the barf game
Yeah but we got Bundy!!
If it was Al Bundy then it may have been worth it.
I think it was actually Ted.
Yes it would have. Remember we’re talking about THE Al Bundy who scored four touchdowns in a single game while playing for the Polk High School Panthers in the 66’ championship including the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds against his old nemesis, Bubba “Spare Tire” Dixon.
Bradish must feel like the luckiest player in the game.
Get the skanks manana!!
The Yanks are gonna get US !
You might be right.