It was a great week to be a batter against the Angels. First Angels hurlers gave up 34 runs across a 4 game set to Detroit, losing 3. That’s a solid 8.5 runs per game allowed. That performance was backed up by a 14 hit, 7 walk outing by Soriano and the blowpen last night.
And it isn’t like the bad pitching is a one week phenomenon. What was expected to be a solid bullpen anchored by Joyce and Jansen has been anything but good. We’re cruising towards historic levels of suckage.
Once again scrambling for any type of serviceable arms in the bullpen, the Angels called up Hector Neris and Connor Brogdon. A day later old friend Hunter Strickland was signed to a minors deal. Strickland did pretty well for the Halos last year and I was a bit surprised to see him leave. That said, none of these moves provide a ton of upside.
Something must be done to replace Reid Detmers. To say he’s been pitching poorly would be a massive understatement.
However, the Angels did manage to take 2 out of 3 from Toronto, which leads us to our Highlight of the Week. Jorge Soler cleared the bases in the bottom of the 9th inning on Wednesday night for the walk off win.
I was at the game Wednesday with a contingent of my Little League team and their parents. It was a school night and my kid knocked out on the drive home. Seeing that finish would have been great, but my son is my priority and he obviously needed some shuteye. The kids and parents loved being together, though, and that is what is important.
Logan O’Hoppe knows what is important and is responsible for my favorite highlight in quite some time. Check him out playing baseball with a young team.
That right there is incredible and warms my heart.
Fellow young stud Zach Neto has a 13 game hitting streak going. Since coming back from injury, Neto has been playing lights out. He was also at the center of a benches clearing incident against Detroit this week. I’m glad he stood up for himself and I’m also glad the chest puffing didn’t lead to actual violence.
Fortunately, the suckage of the MLB Angels isn’t impacting the top arms on the farm. Several are off to hot starts this year and are bringing some hopium to fans like me.
That piece has most of the usual suspects and also a couple of lesser known players. One name missing is Walbert Urena who is looking really nice in AA.
One name mentioned in the above piece but not mentioned here is Joel Hurtado, who is turning into a prospect himself.
More talent will be added soon in the draft and mock drafts are starting to come out. In both MLB’s and The Athletic’s mock drafts the Angels take a quality college starting pitcher. In fact, they take the same pitcher so no need to link the piece behind the paywall.
Nolan keeps pumping out pieces on college players and Turk’s Teeth is dropping knowledge in the comments. Take a look at those pieces and get ready to join us for a live draft thread.
From around baseball:
Pittsburgh fired its manager yesterday, but just like here, nothing will change until ownership changes.
In a showing of just how crazy baseball can be, the Giants scored 9 runs in the top of the 11th inning Tuesday night.
We have an American pope who likes baseball. Who is his favorite team? Read the link.
I’m not sure how to plug this link. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, so read it.
Rafael Devers is telling the world how big of an egotistical a hole he really is.
Devers can rake, though, so….take on that contract and several prospects?
Baseball is losing a great generation of ballplayers. This week Chet Lemon went to the great big ballpark in the sky. That is a phenomenal tribute from the Detroit Free Press and I highly recommend it. Not as long as other longform pieces I’ve linked, but it should get you through about a cup of coffee.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. I have my final Saturday game of the year for my farm Little League team and we are definitely going to pizza afterwards. Fortunately we rescheduled Wednesday’s game for later in the month so I get a few more weeks with these kids, who have really stolen my heart. I’ve been blessed to have a lot of great baseball experience but this one is incomparable.
