Sixty hours 

Posted 11:43 AM by Sean
Honest to God, if Bill Stoneman still thinks he needs to concentrate on getting another pitcher before the trade deadline, he deserves to be strapped to a chair and forced to watch last night's game in a continual loop, Clockwork Orange-style.

A bat. Get us a bat, Bill. Do your job.

Last-minute programming note 

Posted 4:55 PM by Sean
Tonight's game against the Blue Jays is also being broadcast in HD by, um, INHD. Woo!

Selig to Rogers: Drop Dead 

Posted 3:24 PM by Sean
Kenny Rogers's appeal has been denied; he starts serving his 20-game suspension tonight. He'll miss the remaining two games of the Rangers' series with Baltimore, then three with Toronto, three with Tampa Bay, three with Baltimore, three with Boston, four with New York, and two with Cleveland before being eligible to return on August 18.

Small Sample Size Theater Presents 

Posted 9:16 AM by Sean
Bengie Molina's numbers as a DH:

13 AB, 8 H, 1 2B, 1 HR, 2 BB, 0 K, .615/.588/.923

Almost...there... 

Posted 8:56 AM by Sean
One more day of insanity at work, and then things ease off a bit and quasi-regular posts resume.

Last night's game wasn't on inDemand (or InDemand, or iNdEMaNd, or whatever the hell it is) - games with Toronto are for some reason usually not shown - which is probably a good thing for my blood pressure. The Jays are a fairly decent team, but the Angels are going to have to beat the fairly decent teams pretty regularly to have a shot at holding off Oakland.

Anyway, the feeling appears to be that the Angels are doing some fairly serious shopping around for a free agent, probably a pitcher. I'm a bit nonplussed at the idea of getting another starter; it seems to me some depth in the bullpen and/or a quality hitter to put at DH remain the real priorities unless there's something wrong with Escobar that they're not telling us about.

Horse latitudes 

Posted 1:04 PM by Sean
Still swamped plus Blogger sulking and mewling at me equals no posts. Sorry.

Beating the green team last night was nice, but the Angels will still need to take one of the next two against a, you know, decent starter to win the series and keep them comfortably in the rear-view mirror. I do, however, note with bemusement that everyone seems to be forgetting that it is still Texas that is in second place. And what with Ryan Drese settling down and putting up a 3.44 ERA over his last six starts, they may just be able to survive Kenny Rogers's suspension and/or incarceration...what? They...what?

The Rangers DFA'ed Ryan Drese and lost him to the Nationals?!?

Ah, hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Oh, they are so fucked!

Be a fan 

Posted 11:25 AM by Sean
"It's better to light a candle, put on a big lacy shawl, light a bunch more candles, and twirl around a lot than to curse the darkness."
--Stevie Nicks

Okay, wail. Gnash your teeth if you have to. Bemoan the lack of focus, the failure to put batters away with two strikes, the failure to put innings away with two outs, the baserunning lapses, the fielding lapses, the bad hitting. All of these are valid. You have the rest of today.

And then it stops. Because it's times like these that you show your true colors.

Be a fan. Did we have a bad spin through the rotation? Absolutely. But when you go three months putting together the best ERA in the league and suddenly lose it against the worst team in the division, it seems to me that "fluke" is the word that best obtains.

Be a fan. If you follow this team, you've been here before - and recently. Remember last September? Remember dropping five out of six from September 18-24 against Texas, Seattle, and Oakland? Remember what happened after that?

Be a fan. What, did you think it would be easy? You knew better than that. But you also know this isn't the kind of team that folds up its tent and skulks away. Ask the A's about that. Ask their fans if they see Erstad doubling high off the wall in their nightmares.

To be honest, there's not a lot the average person can do to help their team out. What happens in the clubhouse and on the field has a lot more importance that what happens in the stands, or in the newspapers, or on somebody's blog. But what little you can do happens now. It's sticking with your team during the down times; showing some pride in what you are. It's realizing that in order to fully enjoy the victory, you have to leave yourself open to the defeats. It's proving you're not on a bandwagon, you're the damn band.

It's being what you are.

Be a fan. To hell with anything else.

L.A. Times hires 14-year-old boys as headline writers 

Posted 12:29 PM by Sean
"Mariners win a rare stinker from Colon."

Relax 

Posted 9:21 AM by Sean
It is an immutable law of nature, folks, first postulated by Archimedes, that Shit Happens. Occasionally, the nature of such Shit is that good teams get beaten - even whipped, as was the case last night.

You want proof? Fine.

July 9, 1927 - Detroit 14, New York 4
August 9, 1927 - Philadelphia 8, New York 1
(The '27 Yankees, of course, being the gold standard against which all other great teams are measured)

May 10, 1929 - Cleveland 9, Philadelphia 0
June 7, 1929 - St. Louis 15, Philadelphia 6
June 30, 1929 - Washington 12, Philadelphia 2
August 7, 1929 - New York 13, Philadelphia 1
September 29 - Washington 12, Philadelphia 3
September 29, 1929 - Boston 10, Philadelphia 0

July 2, 1931 - Cleveland 12, Philadelphia 4
July 14, 1931 - Detroit 12, Philadelphia 3
July 26, 1931 - Cleveland 13, Philadelphia 2
September 12, 1931 - St. Louis 10, Philadelphia 2

(The '29 and '31 A's were two of the best teams in baseball history that nobody remembers. The '29 team went 104-46 and won the World Series; the '31 club went 107-45 and lost to the Gashouse Gang Cardinals in seven games)

May 2, 1932 - Washington 10, New York 3
May 28, 1932 - Washington 13, New York 5
July 14, 1932 - Cleveland 11, New York 3

(The '32 Yankees had Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, etc. They won 107 games and finished 13 games ahead of the second-place team in the AL, then destroyed the Cubs in the World Series.)

May 17, 1953 - Cincinnati 13, Brooklyn 5
June 18, 1953 - St. Louis 12, Brooklyn 4
July 5, 1953 - New York 20, Brooklyn 6
August 2, 1953 - St. Louis 10, Brooklyn 1
August 26, 1953 - Chicago 13, Brooklyn 4

(The '53 Dodgers won 105 games and finished 13 games in front)

July 20, 1975 - Philadelphia 11, Cincinnati 4
September 9, 1975 - San Diego 11, Cincinnati 2

(You'll never hear Joe Morgan mention these games, but occasionally even the Big Red Machine got creamed. They finished 108-54 and won the Series)

June 12, 1984 - Toronto 12, Detroit 3
July 1, 1984 - Minnesota 9, Detroit 0
July 2, 1984 - Chicago 7, Detroit 1
August 6, 1984 - Boston 10, Detroit 2
August 8, 1984 - Boston 8, Detroit 0
August 14, 1984 - California 12, Detroit 1

(The modern exemplar of a team that was dominant wire-to-wire, the '84 Tigers won 104 games in the regular season and went 7-1 in the postseason. They started the year 35-5...and then promptly got swept by Seattle by scores of 7-3, 9-5, and 6-1)

May 22, 1986 - San Francisco 10, New York 2
July 9, 1986 - Cincinnati 11, New York 1
August 24, 1986 - San Francisco 10, New York 1

(The Mets won 108 games and the World Series that year)

May 6, 2001 - Toronto 11, Seattle 3
May 7, 2001 - Boston 12, Seattle 4
July 5, 2001 - Texas 14, Seattle 2
September 22, 2001 - Oakland 11, Seattle 2

(The Mariners won 116 games that year. 116!)

April 22, 2002 - Seattle 16, Anaheim 5
July 14, 2002 - Kansas City 12, Anaheim 3

(A-hem!)

This list is by no means comprehensive; I picked those teams from memory. Do a more thorough search and I'm sure you'll find blowouts of the '31 Cards, '61 Yankees, and every other team, at least in the live ball era.

July 7, 2005 - Seattle 10, Los Angeles 2

(Big deal)

GA's rewriting the record books tour continues... 

Posted 5:25 PM by Sean
After his homer last night, Garret Anderson now sits eight back of Tim Salmon's franchise record for extra-base hits:

1. Salmon - 643
2. Anderson - 635

He's also creeping up towards second on the home run list:

1. Salmon - 290
2. Brian Downing - 222
3. Anderson - 218

...and should be in second for games played by mid-August:

1. Downing - 1661
2. Salmon - 1596
3. Anderson - 1557

Hail of bullets 

Posted 3:14 PM by Sean

• Garret Anderson was awesome yesterday, driving in the tying and winning runs and cutting down the potential tying run at the plate. But let's also give it up for Jose Molina, who caught Anderson's throw on the third-base side and moved very well with the ball to block the plate and tag the runner out. Bengie probably makes that play. I think.

• Speaking of Bengie, he made his second appearance as a DH yesterday. In seven at-bats as the desginated hitter, he's gotten five hits. Meanwhile, he's caught 29.2% of runners attempting to steal, while Jose has caught 56.5%. And, for some reason, opposing runners are actually making more stolen-base attempts against Jose on a per-inning basis; they take off against Bengie at a 0.065/inning clip, while Jose sees them go 0.076 times/inning.

• For all the squawk and hullaballoo about the green team making it back to .500 (briefly), you'd never realize that they're actually a game further out of first than they were one month ago. Anyone calling them "the hottest team in baseball" would do well to reflect on what that means.

A little joke for you 

Posted 9:41 PM by Sean
Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Jose Guillen.

Jose Guillen who?

LET ME THE FUCK IN, BITCH!

Hey, guess who's reportedly pissed that he's getting hit by pitches, and his own pitchers aren't retaliating?

Support group meets on Thursdays at 7:00, Nats fans. There's coffee and cake.

Drive-by posting 

Posted 12:06 PM by Sean
Awright, so I'm busier'n the proverbial one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest these past few days (Prov. 5:12-16), so the posting, she suffers. Time for bullet points!

• Can we agree that the jury is, in fact, still out on Ervin Santana? Can we actually, in fact, agree that the jury is going to need standing reservations at the Ramada and an open account at the Chinese delivery place around the corner? The guy looked lost as all hell for the first couple of innings last night, then seemed to settle in and pitch reasonably well, but I'm thinking that everyone's going to breathe a little easier once Kelvim Escobar returns from the DL.

• Stoneman says he's "not in a trade mode," which is to be expected given his history and the Angels' lack of glaring holes. They need a DH, true, but no GM in his right mind is going to part with a premium prospect to get a DH when the manager is already trying to find playing time for something like 11 potential full-time players. And no opposing GM in his right mind is going to pick up Finley or Cabrera's contract right now. Meanwhile, that same link also indicates that High-A phenoms Brandon Wood and Howie Kendrick are strong possibilities to be promoted to Double-A Arkansas this summer. Fine. I guess that means that Alberto Callaspo and Erick Aybar get promoted from Arkansas to Salt Lake? Gee, that'll be swell for Brian Specht and Zach Sorensen, who will presumably be promoted to the Angels' AAAA farm team on the Moon.

• Okay, no, actually I see where Sorensen is now getting some time in center field. I suppose that's smart, since at least one outfield slot should be up for grabs in 2007.

• Tim Salmon's been mooning around lately. He's got the itch. But it looks bad for him to return in this, his final year under contract; he'd basically need to be ready to start a rehab assignment by early August, and then be content with a part-time role through September. It will be interesting to see what he does in the off-season: retire, sign for a vastly reduced salary with another team, or accept a non-roster invite to Angels' spring training, since they'll never be able to offer him a guaranteed spot.
  

• Today's game - Byrd v. Santana - is a pretty important one to win, I think. The Angels need to play the good teams tough, especially at home. They've done so with Texas, so far, but what I've seen against the White Sox, Red Sox, and Twins has been somewhat disappointing. Taking this series would be a good step towards establishing the Angels as belonging to that top tier.