April 5, 2017

The Angels knocked off the A’s 5-0 on Wednesday night in Oakland, but they have more injury concerns with starting pitcher Garrett Richards.

Richards was sharp in his 4 2/3 innings of work, giving up just three hits while striking out four.  However, he felt some cramping in his biceps, causing him to leave the game.  Richards insisted that the move was nothing more than precautionary.

“Nothing serious. My arm feels good. I felt good tonight, elbow feels fine, shoulder feels fine,” he said. “It was just kind of a long inning and it just kind of stiffened up a little bit. There’s no red flags or anything, just something that flared up. … Everything kind of moves on as planned.”

Richards underwent tests after the game, which revealed no major issue.  He will be re-evaluated when the team returns to Southern California.

The Halos got the offense going in the 2nd inning in this one.  Andrelton Simmons started things off with an RBI single, while Danny Espinosa tacked on a 2-run single after that.

In the 5th inning, Mike Trout and Albert Pujols had back-to-back RBI singles of their own, and that was all the offense the Lakers needed.

Jose Alvarez, J.C. Ramirez, and Yusmeiro Petit shutdown the Athletics the rest of the way to give the Halos their 2nd victory of the season.  Ramirez picked up the victory.

Game 4 of the series will be Thursday afternoon.  Tyler Skaggs will be going for the Angels, while the A’s will give the ball to Andrew Triggs.

April 4, 2017

Danny Espinosa hit a 3-run home run in the 9th inning to propel the Angels to a 7-6 victory over the A’s.  It was Espinosa’s first hit as an Angel, and the Halos first victory of 2017,

The night was also highlighted by Matt Shoemaker’s return to the mound, after taking a line drive off his head late last season.  Shoemaker pitched 5 solid innings for the Angels, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits, and departing with a 4-2 lead.

“He’s very determined,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “He’s been very determined his whole career to get to this point. I think once he was physically fit, I think everyone felt that he would come back. He’s got the perseverance to get back on that mound and hopefully have the success that he had before.”

Andrew Bailey pitched a scoreless 8th inning to collect the win.  Cam Bedrosian picked up his 2nd career save and his first of the season by shutting down Oakland in the 9th.

The Halos will be back at it in game 3 of the series on Wednesday night.  Garrett Richards will take the mound for the Angels, in his first start May 1, 2016.  Richards underwent stem cell treatment to repair ligament damage in his elbow.  The A’s will counter with Jharel Cotton.

April 3, 2017

The Angels lost their opening game of the season on Monday night in Oakland, falling to the Athletics 4-2.

Khris Davis homered twice for Oakland, and Stephen Vogt added another.  That was too much for the Halos to overcome, as the Angels two runs came on a 2-run shot from Mike Trout.

Kendal Graveman pitched 6 innings for the A’s to get the win.  He gave up 2 runs on 6 hits, while striking out 7.

Ricky Nolasco went 5.2 innings, giving up 7 hits and 3 runs.   Nolasco suffered the loss.

Voigt got the A’s on the board in the 2nd inning with a solo blast to right center field.  The Angels countered half an inning later when Trout’s drive over the left center field fence put them back up by a score of 2-1.

Oakland tied things up at 2-2 in the 5th inning.  Yonder Alonso singled to center, which scored Jed Lowrie.  Nolasco got into more trouble from there.

Davis’ first home run put the A’s back in front 3-2 in the 6th inning.  In the 8th, he homered to left center field again.  That one came off of J.C. Ramirez.

The Angels and Athletics will play game 2 of their 3 game set on Tuesday night in Oakland.  The Halos will give the ball to Matt Shoemaker, who will be making his 1st start since being struck in the head by a line drive in September.  Oakland will go with Sean Manaea.

August 23rd, 2013

Someone is getting fired in Anaheim very soon.  Now that Angels nightmare season is essentially over, details are emerging about how bad things are in Anaheim.  Success in any organization starts at the top, and the rift at the top of the Halos organization seems about as wide as the Grand Canyon at the moment.

Fox Sports ‘ John Morosi is reporting that there are “philosophical differences” between Angels GM Jerry Dipoto, and skipper Mike Scioscia, and that retaining both of them is “not tenable”.  This would explain owner Arte Moreno’s refusal to comment this week on the futures of both men with his ball club.  It’s also clear that this rift dates well back to last season, when the LA Times reported that Scioscia disagreed with Dipoto’s firing of hitting coach Mickey Hatcher.  A few months later, Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reported Scioscia disliked Dipoto’s staff reliance on statistical data.

As I’ve been saying for months now, this rift has been a huge part of the Angels failures on the field.  Jerry Dipoto has constructed a ball club that does not fit Mike Scioscia’s style of baseball  (doesn’t this sound familiar Laker fans?).  Mike Scioscia’s teams have been built on pitching, defense, small ball, and aggressive base running.  Instead, Dipoto has crapped all over Scioscia’s style by torturing numbers, which somehow told him guys like Joe Blanton, Tommy Hansen, and Ryan Madsen will be great pitchers.  Arte Moreno has also screwed up Scioscia ball by impulsively demanding his GM sign aging sluggers Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton.  More on Moreno’s screw ups in a moment…..

If the Angels fire Mike Scioscia, they will have to eat the remaining 5 years on his contract, which includes a total of $12 million in 2017 and 2018.    Moreno would probably look foolish for firing Scioscia too, because he would be unemployed for about 5 minutes with his hometown Phillies, and possibly even the Dodgers lining up for his services.  This might off-set the cost of firing him slightly, however, Dipoto is only signed through 2014.  One the other hand, removing Scioscia might allow Moreno to hire a much cheaper skipper.

As for Moreno, this mess starts with him.  Scott Miller of CBS Sports is reporting that in January of 2011, the Angels owner demanded that then general manager Tony Reagins trade for Toronto slugger Vernon Wells in 24 hours, or be fired.  Moreno’s anger was triggered when the Angels were unable to sign Carl Crawford or Adrian Beltre in free agency, which resulted in a disastrous chain of events, including trading slugger Mike Napoli.  The impulsiveness of Moreno did not stop there, which explains the $240 million he gave Pujols, and the $125 million he gave Hamilton.

These decisions not only have resulted in a terrible performance on the field, as the Halos clubhouse has been very dysfunctional.  Miller reported that during a team meeting in August of last season, outfielder Torii Hunter had to be physically retrained from punching Albert Pujols.  This followed two bad losses to the Tampa Bay Rays.  During the loss on August 17th of that season, Jered Weaver was pitching, and he yelled at one of his infielders for being unable to come up with a ground ball.  The next night, when CJ Wilson was on the mound, several players told CBS Sports that they were tired of his chirping in the dugout, including giving advice to hitters.  Hunter even told Wilson to “pipe down” and the two exchanged words.

Following that game, veteran reliever LaTroy Hawkins called for a players only meeting.  However, the players couldn’t even agree on the format of the meeting.  Pujols insisted that Scioscia and other management attend the meeting, which other players were against.  During the meeting Pujols called out Weaver for yelling at his teammate one night earlier, and also yelled at Hunter for going at it with Wilson.  Hunter and Wilson had apparently already made amends, which annoyed Hunter, and prompted a confrontation between Hunter and Pujols.  Hunter had to be retrained several times from fighting Pujols at that point.  This might also explain why Hunter is no longer and Angel.

At this point, it’s become clear: Arte Moreno knows business, and he knows money.  He does not know baseball.  He needs to leave the baseball decisions to the baseball people.  Since he began his first full year as owner in 2004, he has fired 40 people, and sources told CBS Sports that he often maintains “a skeletal front office staff”.   Typically when someone is fired, he rarely replaces them, and he’s also reportedly been gouging hours from his low paid employees.

Imagine if the Angels still had Kendry Morales, Jean Segura, and Patrick Corbin?  This organization would probably look a lot different now, and would be headed in a different direction.  The Angels are headed for trouble.  They’ve got two really good young players in Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo, but they might not have the money to retain them in a few years.  The farm system is depleted, and the team has no pitching.  However, if the Halos are going to turn things around, it starts at the top.  Regardless of who this teams GM and Manager are moving forward, Arte needs to re-evaluate his own way of doing things.  Otherwise, this team is going to have some ugly years ahead of them.

July 18th, 2013

The first half of the baseball season was uglier than Randy Johnson’s grill for the Halos.    The Angels tumbled into the all-star break losing 5 of their last 6, and getting swept by the Seattle Mariners.  They currently sit 5 games under .500, 11 games back of first place Oakland in the AL West, and 9 games back in the wild card race.   Things aren’t exactly going as planned.

Much like last year, this disaster starts on the mound.   Only 3 teams in all of baseball have a worse team ERA than the Angels.  Ace Jered Weaver missed nearly two months with a broken elbow, then needed another month find his game.  He’s only 3-5 on the season with a 3.63 ERA.  Jason Vargas got off to a respectable 6-4 start, but went on the DL with a blood clot.  Tommy Hanson has been knocked around sporting an ERA of 5.10, and Joe Blanton has been abused more than a battered housewife with his 2-12 record and ERA of 5.53.  The Halos tried to make it a point to fix their pitching after last season’s woes, but somehow found a way to be even worse this year.

Meanwhile, the offense hasn’t been the force that everyone expected.  Josh Hamilton’s career is spiraling downward like that of Tara Reid.  Hamilton is hitting a career low .224, and is on pace to drive in the fewer runs and hit few homers than he has in the last 4 years.  He’s also on pace to strike out a career high 165 times.  Albert Pujols has been plagued by a foot injury since spring training, and although productive at times, he appears to be on a slow but steady decline.   Considering these two are earning a salary that collectively equals the GDP of a small country, their productions stinks.

Once again, the Angels start to the season appears to be what will kill them.  The Angels tied their worst start in franchise history, going 11-22, before trying to play catch up.  They won 8 in a row in late May, but then went on to lose 9 of 11 games shortly after that.  Another win streak of 7 in a row, was recently halted by losing 5 of 6 heading into the all-star break.  The hole is just too big, and the teams in front of them are too good.

The entire team doesn’t suck though.  Mike Trout is having another outstanding season .  Trout is 2nd in the American League in batting average at .322, and is on pace for nearly 30 home runs, over 100 runs batted in, and almost 40 stolen bases.  Trout is arguably the best all around player in baseball.  Mark Trumbo has another 21 home runs thus far, Howie Kendrick has been very productive at 2nd base, and CJ Wilson has been the teams most reliable starter.

The Angels are a talented ball club, that has been underachieving for a season and a half.  The Halos used to pride themselves on being a team that relied on pitching and defense.  Their pitching is terrible, and only the Astros have made more errors than them.  Mike Scioscia has  been known to manufacture runs, and play a very aggressive style on the base paths.  Instead, Angels GM Jerry Dipoto has handed Scioscia a bag of crap, that simply sits back and waits for aging sluggers to hit the 3-run home run.  If the Halos are going to turn things around, they’ll need to figure out their identity.

May 18th, 2013

Ok, I’m going to try and be positive about the Angels.  Let’s see…..they are only 12 games back of first place Texas in the AL West?  Ok let’s try again.  They are only 9 games back in the wild card race?  Shoot! This is much tougher than I thought.  I’ve got it!  Their ERA isn’t quite the worst in baseball, because Toronto and Houston are worse.  I knew I could do it.

Can I go back to be being honest now?  Because the Halos are quickly flushing this season down the toilet.  One quarter of the way through the season, the team is on pace to lose 103 games, and keep in mind, the franchise record is 95.  $127 million clearly doesn’t buy what it used to, because the Angels have no starting pitching, and they have nearly half a billion committed to three players whose best playing days are behind them.

Even Arte Moreno acknowledged this week that Mike Scioscia isn’t responsible for this mess.  It isn’t his fault that none of his starters can give him 6 innings.  It isn’t his fault that his best pitcher, starting shortstop, first baseman, and his starting center fielder are all hurt.  It also isn’t his fault that Josh Hamilton keeps coming down with these mysterious illnesses, and seems to be emotionally unreliable for this ball club.

Arte has spent enough money to feed several small African countries, but in all the wrong places.  He’s taken one of the best managers in baseball, and made him useless by building a team that is incapable of executing the fundamentals of the game, which is essential for Scioscia’s success.  The Halos have always been successful when focusing on pitching and defense, and manufacturing runs, yet they are now inept in all those areas.

The good news is that the Angels have two great cornerstones in Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo that they can build their team around for the next 5 years.  The bad news is that the contracts of Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and CJ Wilson won’t allow them to build much else around them during that time.  Those 3 players need to produce now, because we all know they won’t during the back end of those dumb contracts.   In the meantime, the Halos better build start building that farm system back up because it’s currently considered the worst in baseball.  At least the season is almost over (I told you I could be positive!).