Read that with a Pirate accent this week. As I began writing this the Angels had been dominated by the Pittsburgh Pirates to the tune of 12 runs to 3 through 2 games. As expected, former Angel Andrew Heaney magically turned into prime Clayton Kershaw for his start against his old club.
Really, a lot of pitchers have looked like future Hall of Famers against out boys lately.
That’s not to say it has been all bad. Despite a lack of offense for most of the series, the Angels took 2 out of 3 against a solid Giants team to start the homestand. This leads to the most obvious Highlight of the Week we’ve had in a long time.
Jo Adell had a really great series against SF, going 4 for 10 with 6 total bases. None of those hits were bigger than the one he had to finish the series.
Zach Neto’s late inning heroics salvaged a game against the Pirates which resulted in a 3 and 3 homestand and a team record again of .500
.500 seems about right for this team. The fact we’re underwhelmed by a 3 and 3 homestand because of two losses to the Pirates shows we are starting to believe a bit in these kids. If they can get some support from the veterans, we might be decent.
And as we all know this is a rebuilding team, the highlights don’t need to be from the MLB level. George Klassen is thus far exceeding expectations for Rocket City. Considering many peg him as having the best “stuff” in the Angels farm system those expectations were fairly high. He threw another great game and gives us reason to dream.
I don’t agree that any one pitching prospect is the most important prospect in the Angels system. However, it is critically important that one of Klassen, Caden Dana, or Reid Detmers lives up to their ceiling and at least one of them becomes a middle of the rotation guy. Then we have the group of Silent C, Sam Aldegheri, and Chase Silseth that needs to produce another mid to back end guy. In an ideal world they all pan out but this is baseball and those are reasonable if slightly optimistic.
Kochanowicz did look better in his outing against Pittsburgh than he has most of 2025 but he still coughed up the long ball. Actually, he gave up an extremely long ball. This is one of the furthest hit balls I’ve ever seen at the Big A, steroid era included.
And, yes, I am alluding to Tim Salmon when I phrase it that way.
George Klassen was a trade pickup by Perry last summer. So was Ryan Zeferjahn. This week FanGraphs did a great deep dive on Ryan that is very much worth a read. It gets just nerdy enough to learn some new things but not so technical as to sound like an owner’s manual.
When looking at the rebuild, we have to look at this year’s draft. How much $ will the Angels have to spend on young talent? A lot. Keep in mind that if the team does manage to trade for one of the competitive balance picks, the slot allotment for that pick will be added to their coffers.
Who might the Angels draft at #2? Nolan is doing a good job tracking the names at the top of the draft board.
I have to say I’m really pleased with the way that series is developing. The comment count is rising week by week and Turk’s Teeth pops in with his insight more often than not. College baseball is a ton of fun and I think we are getting more into it as a community.
Winning in Major League Baseball is hard enough. It is even harder when the team owners set up ludicrous travel schedules. By the math, if the Angels game wrapped up about 9:00 Thursday. John Wayne and Long Beach have 10 PM flight cutoffs so they’ll leave LAX at 11 at best, land in Minneapolis at 4:15 AM local time, and get into their hotels around 5 AM Friday. Not ideal for athletic success, but hey a few thousand more folks will line Arte’s pockets tonight and that is what is really important. (I was one of them.)
From around baseball:
The Dodgers gamble on Blake Snell isn’t working out well at the moment. I get it, they have enough money to take the high risk/high reward types and shoot for the reward. But they need to have some reliable cogs for the inevitable blowups and over the years their rotation depth has taken some serious hits in that regard.
Now that we’re about a month in, who are the winners and losers so far?
Should we believe in some teams off to hot starts?
Wrigleyville faithful rejoice, the Cubs just swept the Dodgers and made Ohtani look human.
Shohei’s slump looks like a blip to Joc Pederson, who finally snapped his 0 for 41 skid with a hit against the A’s.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. My Angels team has a big game tomorrow followed by a pizza party. We only have a couple of weeks of games left and I’m already dreading not seeing these smiling faces 3 days a week. On Wednesday we staged a late rally to beat the Pirates thanks largely to a kid who has struggled but worked his butt off getting two hits in the game. Seeing progress, smiles, and friendships made is simply awesome and I’m so happy I took on being their coach.
Not sure I drank enough to get ready for the start of this series, but I’m willing to add my focus to the win. Also, Hank Conger sighting, so that’s a win
Rollie!
Matt Spazgasm-gersian on the mic
Got a hit. Dumb Arte Blocked trade. Stupid Perry could have signed him multiple times after Dumb Arte Blocked trade. Angels Suck!
Bye!
Muscle emojis!
Orange guy indeed is NOT in the lineup
https://x.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1915864645803319462
Best shape of his life.
-April
He declined to play.
He’s still trying to overturn the results of Wednesday’s game.
Rumor is he’s vacationing in El Salvador.
He’s sitting this one out—apparently, he thought a ‘swing state’ was a batting technique.
Busy night
NFL Draft, Kings, Lakers, Skenes Doyers, Angels anemic offense KKK’ing.
This Angels team is not a .500 team, and too many here want to blame someone like the manager, Washington. Even if Neto is what I believe he is and Hoppe’s bat is what I think it is, that leaves 7 other spots filled with below average players. Washington is not going to turn this line up into a feared throughout baseball hitting lineup. Coaches and managers change, and the product stays the same, high strikeouts, low in walks, poor hitting skills, poor base running, and constant swing for the fences. Fans blamed Sosh, then Brad, etc.
We pick up trash heap players, trade for players that we can afford with maybe some upside and hope for the best. We keep players with average skill sets and when in a short period of time they don’t come through, they are released to for most part in a short period of time picked up by another team. So, what is a fan to do, well, around here we point fingers at the Umps, Mgr, Coaches, the League, collectively that may hold water. BUT:
The truth of the matter has been exposed-it’s the fucking Hot Dogs-who knew. Sam has uncovered the source of the problem, who knew hot dogs were made with questionable meat by products and were not health food, cheap Arte is behind this no doubt. Sell the team Arte so we can enjoy all beef franks.
Well, in another 6 or 7 years we will have Raudi to lean on….
Look at the Big Bat on Raudi.
https://x.com/TaylorBlakeWard/status/1914901190858690768
Rhett reports on prospects at the various levels today while Sam hits us with the scoop Arte is filling the hot dogs at the Big A with all sorts of cheap animal parts and that they are probably the worst in MLB.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised …….. maybe I should reconsider my prior statement that Arte is not in fact Evil ?
Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” but Anaheim style.
Remember Rev’s t-shirt with the cartoon rat on it ??? Maybe some of those rats found their way into the hot dogs ??
I remember how gob smacked I was in college when I learned that The Jungle was full of crap and mostly made up by Sinclair to help certain politicians push through regulations that would help companies they enjoyed… yet it spawned this whole huge hysteria when it came out and to this day people like myself just took it as The Facts when it came to meat back then.
Even though “The Jungle” was a work of fiction, much of it was based on Sinclair’s experiences working in the meatpacking plants of the Union Stockyards of Chicago in 1904.
That’s he thing. It’s a work of fiction…. just like Sinclair’s story of having seen all this wild shit while working in stockyards…. there’s a lot of questions as to have much “undercover” work he did and how much making shit up he did. I had to sit through a whole seminar on it…
Were workers exploited in bad conditions? Was the meat questionable? If yes to both then he made his point and if a certain incident didn’t happen then it’s a message within fiction rather a documentary.
Hot dogs are made with cheap animal parts?!?!?
Brings to mind a workplace tour I took through a large chicken processing plant. Tour guide: “The only thing that escapes this place is the cluck”.
Personally I wash my meat before I eat it…..with dish soap
https://x.com/ClownWorld_/status/1915566447050596789
Everything but the dish soap and the yogurt looks pretty good,,,
Even the veggie dogs? Arte’s villainy knows no bounds!
Hey! They got “dog” right in the name.
Rough rough.
Just discovered on MLB.com that the Angels are dead last in all of baseball in BOTH team walks and team OBP. Yes, we are even behind the horrid Rockies and horrid White Sox. This cannot be accepted.
To a large extent this has to fall at the feel of Johnny Washington… It is his job to see that our guys have an approach that is conducive to success. He clearly is not doing that. In addition it is not like he has the Pirates offensive talent or lack thereof… He DOES have talent to work with. He is not doing his job and really should be fired.
2025 MLB Team Hitting Stat Leaders | MLB.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5pmDgWMaU
Not always a riot is needed. Often organized and peaceful protests are the most impactful.
I’m happy to throw the blame somewhere and try something new. We keep underperforming coaching too long the way we kept Jose Suarez too long.
If it is what’s happening it indeed can be accepted. WTF are you gonna do about it?
I am doing it here today ….
cool
Praying, for a healthy and speedy recovery for #6
That’s the key that’s been missing…..
Godspeed Anthony
I blame the talent, skills > batting coach
I blame the burial ground.
Even worst tonight. 11 – 3, same amount of hits, but the twins have 8 walks compared to the angels 2.
I’ve been advocating that we put Trout at leadoff for years. Anyway, given the strange scheduling + the travel, I suspect that Trout gets an off day today.
The most prodigious homers I’ve seen in Anaheim were one by Nelson Cruz when he was a Ranger to left center and an absolute atom bomb by Mark Trumbo to the upper food court area in left field. Both of these blasts were probably around 10 years ago, maybe a bit longer.
I know you said the ones you’ve seen, but Gubi/broadcast (hey I was listening!) did mention that the absolute longest on record in Anaheim was a Joey Gallo 490 footer that almost reached the flower beds at the top of the batter’s eye just off dead center to right.
490 feet. Damn, son.
Nelson Cruz’s bomb was 475ft. The one yesterday was 464. Huge but not the longest ever.
Wasn’t the bonds Homer during the World Series, the longest one hit at Anaheim Stadium?
One of the longest I’ve seen, but my longest ever was Willie McCovey as a Friar during spring training in Palm Springs- early 70s – a high rope down the right field line and it was a windy day in PS.
Think >115 mph off the bat launched with a 25 mile wind at its back. 😮
RE: “ One of the longest I’ve seen”
TWSS to me.
It very well could be BUT … that was prior to statcast era and I don’t think an accurate measurement was ever produced for that homer.
I never even heard an estimate on distance. I’m sure some scientist could take launch angle, landing angle, wind (via the US flag?) and an accurate time-stamped video (velocity) to project it but … I don’t have the time nor an accurate time stamped video.
Angel Stadium Top 10 Longest Home runs of the Statcast Era
According to ChatGPT…
The longest home run ever recorded at Angel Stadium during the Statcast era (since 2015) was a 493-foot blast by Shohei Ohtani on June 30, 2023, against the Arizona Diamondbacks. SI+5Fox Sports+5MLB.com+5
As for the longest home run hit by an Angels player, Jo Adell achieved this feat with a 514-foot home run on June 21, 2023, while playing for the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees. This is the longest home run ever recorded by Statcast, although it occurred in a minor league game. Wikipedia+1Reddit+1Reddit
In Major League play, Mike Trout hit his longest home run at Angel Stadium on April 19, 2025, with a 484-foot shot against the San Francisco Giants. This ranks among the longest home runs in the majors that season. Reuters+3ESPN.com+3Reuters+3
I would bet Trump gets tomorrow’s game off.
I think you meant to type Trout.
This isn’t a golf site.
Its not?
I don’t think Trump is in the lineup either, but f he was it would be the best lineup ever according to him.
????
10 longest home runs in MLB history:
1) Babe Ruth, 575 feet (1921)
2) Mickey Mantle, 565 feet (1953)
3) Reggie Jackson, 539 feet (1971)
T-4) Adam Dunn, 535 feet (2004)
T-4) Willie Stargell, 535 feet (1978)
6) Dave Kingman, 530 feet (1976)
7) Darryl Strawberry, 525 feet (1988)
8) Jim Thome, 511 feet (1999)
T-9) Nomar Mazara, 505 feet (2019)
T-9) Mo Vaughn, 505 feet (2002)
Here are the longest homers Statcast has tracked since Opening Day of the 2015 season.
1. Nomar Mazara: 505 feet, June 21, 2019, vs. CWS
After crushing a a 482-foot shot on Opening Day in ’19, Mazara topped himself for the Statcast record with a colossal smash against the White Sox. The left-handed slugger unloaded on a 94.7-mph fastball from Reynaldo López and sent it soaring into the upper deck in right field at Globe Life Park in Arlington.
“That was a bomb, a complete bomb,” said Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus, who was on first base at the time of the home run. “I think it was more than 505 feet. It was more like 600 feet. It was really loud. We know he can do that. He’s got a lot of pop in his bat.”
2. (tie) C.J. Cron: 504 feet, Sept. 9, 2022, vs. ARI
It’s only fair for the longest measured home run in Coors Field history to belong to a member of the Rockies — even if Cron’s towering 504-foot blast has to share the honor with the one Giancarlo Stanton hit in 2016.
2. (tie) Giancarlo Stanton: 504 feet, Aug. 6, 2016, vs. COL
Stanton belted the first 500-foot homer in Statcast™ history by extending way up the Coors Field bleachers in the left-center power gap. It took a Stanton-ian combination of a 115.8-mph exit velocity and a very low 18-degree launch angle for Stanton to reach that part of the park.
“I think we like seeing it fly like that, especially if it’s our guys hitting it,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly told MLB.com. “Balls with that trajectory, for a lot of guys it doesn’t go out. He hits balls that just keep carrying. He hits them a long way.”
4. Christian Yelich: 499 feet, Sept. 6, 2022 vs. COL
This moonshot, which did eventually land in Coors Field’s third deck, didn’t just give Yelich sole possession of the No. 3 spot on this list — it also topped his previous career best by 37 feet.
5. (tie) Jesús Sánchez: 496 feet, May 30, 2022 vs. COL
Despite Coors Field’s long history of majestic home runs, Sánchez’s 496-footer is third in terms of distance — while it represented the only run the Marlins scored in an otherwise run-of-the-mill 7-1 loss, there was nothing forgettable about this shot.
Cool list but we were talking Anaheim. I’ll wait for your revised list now. Babe never played in “the house that Autry built and Arte made better”
Who has hit the longest HR in Angels history? Longest at the BIG A? Maybe Shohei or Trout? I do not know, and inquiring minds want to know! 😜
You mention friendships being made in little league, that is so true.
One of my best friends, while we met each other in kindergarten 50 years ago, we also were on the same little league team. He was my best man in my wedding and I still see him at least once per month.
That’s awesome.
I really hope these kids look back on this experience and smile. I know I will.
Anderson is pitching like a stopper this year. Even when he’s shaky, kills the losing streak. Lucky that 119-MPH line drive from Cruz at the end was right at Trouty… that fellow is a beast.
Three runs would’ve been a bad loss in Game 2. By your standards, Jack K was a stopper too.
He’s got a very nice 2.60 ERA but that’s not really what the tao of stopper is all about. It’s just the guy in the rotation who dependably ends losing streaks… as Anderson has done his last two starts.
He’s Vlady. Swing hard at all round white things everywhere.
That WAS a satisfying win last night. Just-good-enough pitching. Solo homer. So very Angels.
Nice win last night. Create momentum!
Unfortunately that momentum ends tonight. You are only as good as that days starting pitcher as the old saying goes.
Tonight we have Kyle Hendricks, 4.50 ERA vs Pablo Lopez, 1.62 ERA.
Goodbye one game winning streak.
An Eppei Buck or 2 on Lopez seems like easy money.
Yes, I have already put a few Ippei bucks on the Twins for tonight.
Thankfully, it’s the Twins. This will be a battle of who wants to get a hit…. any hit. Plus, we may see both Byron Buxton and Mike Trout incur season ending injuries from simple tasks in the same game! Hell, I expect Buxton to spontaneously combust some day.
So you’re saying that this series will be the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy of baseball?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtaiL9Fx6Fc
Jack wins!
Having just watched episode 3 of Hacks’ latest season, where Deborah and Ava were arguing over the goal of the writers’ retreat. Deborah wants the big goal of having the #1 late night show in 3 months, while Ava wanted to start with something smaller, like figure out what to do with the first episode, before even thinking about being a #1 hit.
Aiming for .500 feels that way for this team. Smaller goal, albeit YOOOOOOOOGGEEE improvement from prior years.
The last time the Los Angeles Angels (of non Anaheim) had a .500 season was 1964, I’d say a name change is needed.
Not a bad idea.
I would settle for sound fundamental baseball, and not striking out 15 times a game.
Seems like the entire roster is over thinking in the batters box…. Maybe just try see ball – hit ball for a week or two and see if you can cut down on the12 K’s every night.
I’m certain this colder than normal weather is being caused by all the whiffing…caused the wind patterns to shift… it’s sucking all cold ocean air into SoCal.
Stooopid Perry, stooopid marine layer. (Not you MarineLayer) 🙃
Angels are mid-pack as it comes to team strikeouts, the pandemic is quite pervasive
Trouty still has the wheels.
Now if he can get that hit tool working consistently, then we may see him move up the rankings. The triple was nice, more line drive hits is all we ask.
Should have had a two run HR to go with that triple as well. His AB in the 4th turned that game around…. and likely saved the season from disaster. Had we been swept at home by the Pirates coming off the great Easter comeback it would have been utter disaster… psychologically the team would have taken an MMA groin shot.
His focus and intelligence during that AB was impressive… a true veteran AB.. He was patient, fought back in the count, went with the pitch. And that of course led to Wards’ single and the O’Hoppe blast. Seeing that particular AB makes me consider more strongly what some have said about him maybe moving to lead-off. Despite the recent strikeouts, he still has the ability to draw walks, and opposing pitchers no doubt still fear him. At the very least he’ll get pitchers to increase their pitch count right from the start of the game… Also I think as lead off hitter he would naturally change his approach from pure power to a focus of OBP.
Trying it for 2-3 weeks not be a bad thing.
It couldn’t hurt. He certainly seems to have no aptitude for clutch hits with men of base, rare as that is.
Take a breath. You’re gonna crush those pearls. This team is gonna kind of suck. If your left arm starts hurting or you smell burning call a doctor right away.