August 2008 Archives

If you spend much time reading baseball news on the internet, you've probably come across Tim Dierkes' website MLBTradeRumors.com.  His site has become the "go to" place to get up-to-the-minute updates on hot-stove news including trade rumors and free agent signings.  Baseball Hall of Fame sports-writer Peter Gammons calls it "a must read" and CBS Sportsline uses MLBTR as its trade rumor source.  I came across MLBTradeRumors a couple years ago, and I now visit it at least a couple times a day, especially during the days leading up to the July 31st and August 31st trade deadlines.

Tim was kind enough to take some time from his busy day to answer my questions:

What is your background?  I've read you've recently started working on your website full-time, what did you do before?

Out of college I spent over three years working in search engine marketing for a Chicago company called DoubleClick Performics.  I determined what advertisers should bid for keywords on various retail accounts.  It was a nice job, I enjoyed it and the people were great.
 
What gave you the inspiration to start a website about MLB trade rumors?  How long have you been running MLBTradeRumors? 
 
I have always loved the hot stove side of baseball.  This may stem from watching many lousy Cubs teams, where the most optimistic part of the year was the offseason.  I am fascinated with free agent megadeals and trades.  I started the site in November of 2005.  About five months prior to that I began my blogging career with a fantasy baseball site, RotoAuthority.  All of it was started as a hobby, I just liked to write.
 
How much time do you generally spend on your site each day?  What does your typical day consist of?
 
It varies quite a bit - could be four hours on a slow day or 18 hours during the Winter Meetings.  Typically I wake up and check my email first.  If there are any urgent rumors readers will kindly email me about them.  After that I will comb through RSS feeds of 200+ sites looking for rumors or hot stove tidbits.  I do a lot of reading each morning.  I stop along the way to write the posts.  I keep the feeds open all day so I can catch breaking rumors.
 
Now that MLBTR is your full-time job, do you enjoy it as much?
 
I enjoy it more, because I have more time to give it the attention it deserves.  I don't feel like I am falling behind, and I have time in the afternoons to do chats or radio shows.  It is obviously a great job.
 
Do you get much feedback from "mainstream" sources such as ESPN, newspapers and MLB front-office personnel?  What I mean is, how much contact do you have with these sources?
 
ESPN guys and beat writers I talk to every day.  All those guys are great and help me out a lot.  Front office personnel, just a handful of guys who I email occasionally.
 
Peter Gammons has written that your site is one of his "must reads", how did that make you feel to be acknowledged by one of the industry's top personalities?
 
It was a huge thrill!  I love reading Gammons' stuff.
 
Did you see the segment on Costas Now! with Buzz Bissinger and Deadspin.com's Will Leitch?  Do you think Bissinger's negative comments are indicative of print media's feelings towards internet sports reporting?
 
I did see it.  Buzz does not have much in common with the journalists I interact with; he seems to focus more on long-form features and books.  Plus, the blogs/commenters he railed against do not have much in common with my site.  I typically talk to beat writers or guys at ESPN who are in the trenches digging for inside info.  My interactions with the print media have been entirely positive - they are always helpful and responsive.  Many of them have reached out to me with kind words, and a few even mentioned the site in the newspaper.  These journalists are the ones digging up the rumors - without them I would have nothing!  In turn some writers benefit from MLBTR by not having to dig through hundreds of websites to get all the rumors.
 
What do you think the future holds for mainstream print media?
 
It will become less relevant, but will not go away.  The best newspapers will adapt, leaving the time-sensitive info for their websites.  A lot of them already do this - beat writers break news on their blogs, opinion pieces appear in the paper the next day.  It is not something where the internet needs to replace newspapers...they fit well together.  Some newspapers have immensely popular blogs, like Peter Abraham's.  But people aren't cancelling their subscriptions because of the blog, as far as I know.
 
How about internet sports reporting?  Do you think the internet will overtake print media as far as where people get their sports news in the future (if it hasn't already)?
 
I haven't seen the stats on where people get their sports news these days.  Younger people definitely seem to skew heavily toward online.  Most rumors appear on the beat writer's blog before they make it into the newspaper.  The journalist often can't afford to sit on a rumor for 12 hours to get it into the paper.  That has already progressed quite a bit in three years - these days every beat writer has a blog it seems.  The diehard fans want their news immediately and can't wait until tomorrow's newspaper.
 
Where do you see MLBTR's place in sports reporting in the future?  What are your plans for MLBTR? 
 
Mainly I am going to keep doing what I am doing.  MLBTR is a hot stove news aggregator, but also offers resources, opinions, analysis, and a commenting community.  It would be fun to grow my network of sources, start breaking some exclusive news here and there.  But I am not an aggressive networking type person, so it will continue to happen gradually.  A few things I am hoping to add to the site: a fully functional mobile version, better load time, and a database where you can query all of a GM's moves and see who he's matched up with on trades.  We are making progress on all of these fronts.  Also my blogging platform, TypePad, has many improvements in the works for their commenting system.
 
Any advice you can give a fledgling internet blogger?
 
Don't get into it for money.  Write every day and don't quit if your traffic is low.  Email your most interesting posts to the bigger blogs in your niche, but don't pester them or complain if they don't reply.  Offer to write guests posts for the bigger sites, that way they're getting something in return for linking to you.  Don't use gray text on a black background...haha.
 
 
Many thanks, Tim.  Your time is very much appreciated!

The Fire Is Lit

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If you watched the end of the Angels / Rangers game last night you would have seen Mark TeixeiraTeixeira.jpg act like a player who had just won a very big game.  Teix recorded the final out of the Angels' come-from-behind 7-5 win over the Rangers that featured an 8th inning, 5 run rally.  After Wednesday night's comeback fell short, last night's victory was a big game.  It showed the Halos have the ability and "fire" to never give up, that no matter how far down they are, they can comeback.  An important attitude for the team to have if they want to win a World Series.  Clutch performance from Jon Garland provided the opportunity for the Angels' comeback.  After giving up 4 runs in the first inning and another run in the fourth, Garland kept his team in the game by going 8 innings and not allowing any further scoring.  Garland's 8-inning outing also afforded the Angels' tired bullpen a much needed rest after Wednesday's 7-plus inning relief effort.  The big hit for the Angels' offense was off of the bat of pinch-hitter Juan Rivera's bat.  Rivera blasted a bases loaded double off of the right-centerfield fence that was just a couple feet from being a grand slam. 

To me, the highlight of the game was Teixeira's show of emotion.  It'd be real easy for Teix to come to Anaheim and put in his time until the off season and his impending free agency.  But instead, he's playing like he's been part of the team from day one.  The Halos would most likely have won the division without the trade deadline deal that brought Teixeira to Anaheim, but his winning attitude might be the edge the Angels need to put them over the top.

Daily Notes:

  • A lot of Angels news on ESPN today.  About time the East-coast Sports Programming Network found out about the West Coast's best team.  Jason Stark writes about 10 Key Questions for the last month of the season.  Number 4 asks if the Angels will lose their mojo and if they can keep "that extra edge".  One interesting point was "We found eight teams in the wild-card era that entered September with division leads of 15 games or more. The bad news for the Angels is this: Only one of them -- the 1998 Yankees -- won the World Series. But here's the good news: Half of those teams at least played in the World Series. And all told, those teams played 18 postseason series and won 11 of them."  The need to keep "that extra edge" makes the Teixeira deal look even better.
  • Also on ESPN, the leading article on their MLB page features an article by Gene Wojciechowski about how the Angels are built to win, not just the division, but the World Series.  Once again Torii Hunter shows his sense of humor within the write-up.  When asked about Angels' owner Arte Moreno, "Arte's awesome," Hunter says. "First of all, he knows my name. [Twins owner Carl Pohlad] called me 'Kirby Puckett' sometimes."  That cracks me up, is there a team owner who's a bigger douche than Pohlad?
  • Last night's line-up featured what could be the 2009 Angels version of Detroit's great double-play combo of Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker when Brandon Wood and Sean Rodriguez both started.  Wood was called up from AAA Salt Lake when Howie Kendrick was placed on the 15-day disabled list.  This is Wood's fourth trip to the majors where he's hit a weak .134 (13 for 97), but after working on his swing during the AAA all-star break, Wood feels he is a better hitter.  In the 42 games after the break, Wood hit .361 with 17 home runs.
  • Magic Number: 13 (with 29 games remaining)  

Joe vs. The BABIP

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Batting average of balls in play, or BABIP is a recent statistic developed to quantify a players luck.  Thesaunders 2.jpg proponents of BABIP claim that all pitchers BABIP stay consistent and a pitcher whose BABIP is high should see a future improvement because they are suffering from bad luck, while a pitcher with an unusually low BABIP should see their future performance regress because they have been lucky.  As a self proclaimed stathead, I love statistics, but I have a hard time believing in a stat that claims to track luck.  I think a person makes their own luck by putting themselves in positions to win (good luck) or lose (bad luck).  When relating luck to baseball players I think this belief holds true and their luck is based on skill.  In regards to pitchers and BABIP, there are many factors that can effect a pitcher's performance, i.e. a pitcher may have developed or improved a pitch that increases his chances of winning, or possibly a pitcher may be hurt causing his pitches to be less effective.  Another example is maybe the team brought in a slick fielding shortstop who now is cobbling up those groundballs that used to get through for hits, or maybe the pitcher worked on his splitter and is now getting more groundballs that used to be line drive hits.  On the other side, if a pitcher is injured or fatigued his pitches might be more hittable.  This has nothing to do with luck, it relates to ability, either his or the team behind him.  There are so many things that factor into a pitcher's results, to lump them all into luck is stupid.  I understand BABIP should not be used to track game-by-game results, but should be used to predict future results based on past season performance and career results using the belief that a player will regress to his mean, be it improvement or decline. 

Joe Saunders got lit up last night.  Saunders lasted just an inning and a third against Oakland, giving up 6 earned runs and 8 hits and is now winless in August (4 starts).  During his August starts, Saunders' BABIP is .368.  Does this mean he's been unlucky?  No, it shows he's sucked.  If BABIP is used in the correct way when looking at Saunders' performance this year it'd look like this:

Year BABIP
2005 .239
2006 AAA .270
2006 .305
2007 AAA .331
2007 .336
2008 .267
Career .295

These numbers try to suggest Saunders has been pitching this year with good luck behind him considering his BABIP is out of line with his career number (apparently he's always sucked).  Have we been watching Saunders regress to his mean over his last 4 starts?  His August numbers aren't too far off from his 2007 season results, but how would you explain his results prior to August of this season?  His BABIP prior to August was .242, much better than his career numbers.  There has to be more to it than luck.  I don't believe a pitcher can be lucky for 4 months, in my opinion the sample size is large enough to suggest other factors.  I can see a month or two, but something changed prior to this season that I believe improved Saunders' chances of winning, whether it was improved skills or team defense; the Angels defense has improved slightly from last year.  In 2007 the team defense efficiency was .677, this year it's .697 (Defense efficiency estimates the number of batted balls turned into outs).

When looking at Saunders' BABIP over the course of a season, it does appear he has a difficult time maintaining his performance.  As the graph below shows (provided by Hardball Times), over the last 3 years he gets worse as the season goes on.

Saunders BABIP Graph.pngWhatever the belief, whether it is luck, skill, karma, astrology, or voodoo, Saunders needs to get back to his pre-August results as he's an important part of the Angels' post season success. 

Daily Notes:

  • The Angels' bullpen was very good last night while holding Oakland scoreless over the last 7.2 innings and giving the hitters a chance to get the team back into the game.  Shane Loux pitched 3 innings in relief of Saunders, followed by Oliver, Arredondo and Speier.
  • Weird batting order last night with Gary Matthews Jr. and his blistering .309 OBP leading off, followed by Howie Kendrick in the #2 slot.  I like this place in the order for Kendrick, but I have no idea what Matthews was doing leading off.  Maybe Mike Scioscia was just trying to "shake things up".
  • Wednesday night was not a good night for staying healthy as both Kendrick and shortstop Erick Aybar left the game with injuries.  Kendrick re-injured his right hamstring, the same one that caused him to miss 6 weeks earlier in the season and Aybar left the game with a tight left hamstring.  The injuries caused the Angels to use a unique line-up in the ninth inning when OF Juan Rivera made his first career appearance at second base.  Although neither injury looks serious, the Angels are rumored to be looking for infield help via trade.  Names that have surfaced include former Angels David Eckstein, Toronto's John MacDonald and Marco Scuturo, Cleveland's Jamey Carroll and Baltimore's Juan Castro.  Other options are Sean Rodriguez and Brandon Wood.  Wood can play short or third (moving Chone Figgins to 2B) and Sean Rodriguez who can fill-in at both middle infield positions.  Figgins is also hurting and considered day-to-day due to irritation in his left big toe.
  • Magic Number:  15 (with 30 games remaining)

That's More Like It

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Outstanding pitching and timely hitting, those are a couple of characteristics of a championship team.  Lackey.jpgLast night the Angels showed those traits while beating up on the Oakland A's.  Starting pitcher, John Lackey pitched his eight career complete game for his 5th straight win.  Lackey came within two outs of a shutout if not for Jack Cust's 9th inning home run.  The homer was the only mistake Lackey made in the game as he didn't walk a batter and struck out 5.  The strike out total was relatively low, but was by design.  Lackey's outing was more about efficiency than over-powering the hitter, as he threw 23 first pitch strikes (out of 32 batters), and only needed 98 pitches to get through nine innings.  Some have claimed the Angels lack the dominating number one starter needed to win a World Series, but Lackey has shown he's more than capable of filling that need.  Since beginning the season on the disabled list with a strained tricep, Big John has won 11 of 13 decisions while compiling an ERA of just 2.95.  I'd match-up Lackey against any other team's ace and feel confident in the Angels' ability to get the win.

One the other side of the game, the Angels' offense produced the timely hits to put 5 runs on the board, with most of the damage coming in the third inning when the Halo's scored 4 times.  Mark Teixeira and Gary Matthews Jr provided run scoring singles and Torii Hunter had an RBI double.  Juan Rivera added in a sac fly, rounding out the scoring in the third. 

Daily Notes:

  • Torii Hunter is becoming one of my favorite players.  Not only does he play the game with enthusiasm and determination, but he shows a true joy while playing.  During the third inning, Hunter tagged up and went to third on Rivera's sacrifice fly.  Oakland's first baseman Daric Barton cut-off the throw to the plate and tried to get Hunter at 3rd base, hitting Hunter square in the back of the head with a bullet throw.  Hunter was a little woozy after the play, but when Angels' athletic trainer Ned Bergert checked him out and asked him where he was, Hunter joked, "Minnesota" and started laughing.  "I'm glad my helmet stayed on. Sometimes it falls off when you run, and thank God it didn't - because if I didn't have that on, I'd have been out. I would have taken a long nap right there."  It's fun to watch a player, especially a player as good and high-paid as Hunter have a good time and show that type of emotion.
  • Mark Teixeira continues to show how valuable he is to the team.  Although I really like Casey Kotchman and thought at the time of the trade it was the wrong move trading him away, Teixeira has convinced me it was a good deal and improved the team's chances of winning the World Series.  Since joining the Halos, Teixeira has hit a robust .363 and driven in 21 runs in just 25 games.  Hopefully Teix re-signs in the off-season and is not just a one-year "rental".
  • Magic Number:  15 (with 31 games remaining)

Weaver Does Well, But Runs Are Still Scarce

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As I was driving home from work last night, I was thinking about what I was going to write about for this blog.  I was thinking when the Angels win they'll have a nice little 3-game win streak going and hopefully that'll be a sign of the team finally waking up from their run scoring slump.  After all, they were playing Oakland.  weaver.jpgA team ranked last in the league in runs scored, last in hits, last in batting average, last in on-base percentage...you get the idea.  Oakland proved worthy of their offensive stats by getting only 4 hits and scoring just 2 runs, but two runs ended up being one more than the Halos could manufacture as the Angels lost the opening game of their 3 game series to the A's 2-1.  I failed to realize that Oakland does have the third best ERA in the league and the Angels haven't been scoring runs like they're capable of doing.  I know, the Angels still lead the AL West by 16 games and have a magic number of 16 to clinch the division title, but a division title will not be good enough with this team.  If the hitting woes continue into or reappear in October, the post season is going to be very short.  Last night's line-up was without the regular 4 and 5 hitters as both Vlad Guerrero and Garrett Anderson sat out.  Guerrero was given the night off to rest his knees and Anderson is battling knee problems of his own.  According to the L.A. Times, Mike Scioscia was quoted saying Guerrero will be given 2, if not 3 days off to "re-charge".  This is probably a good move as Guerrero is an important piece of the Angels' offense.  Resting him now makes sense in order to have him healthy and fresh later.  Anderson had an MRI on his left knee which he hurt during Sunday's game, but according to the same Times article, Anderson said it was feeling better.  With the huge division lead, Scoiscia has the luxury of resting some of his players, especially to avoid future injuries and to push deep into the post season.

Daily Notes:

  • The Angels sent Kendry Morales back down to AAA and added right-handed reliever Jason Bulger to the pen.  Bulger had a brief appearance earlier this season, but didn't do well as he gave up 5 runs in just 5.2 innings.  While at AAA Salt Lake, Bulger was having a fantastic season where he struck out 72 in just 41 innings while compiling a 0.66 ERA.  Bulger could be a very useful addition to the Halos' shaky bullpen if he's able to translate his minor league stats into major league results.  Working the 9th inning last night, Bulger retired Oakland in order on his first day back with the big club.
  • Jered Weaver's good outing was wasted last night.  Weaver gave up only 2 runs on 3 hits over 7 strong innings, but failed to get the win as the Angels' bats were silent.  Winless over his last 3 starts, Weaver has pitched well giving up just 13 hits over his last 18.1 innings while striking out 23.
  • Magic Number: 16 with 32 games remaining.

Alright, Who Stole The Bats?

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Someone check the ebay listings for "Authentic MLB Bats, Full of Hits".  They've got to be out there somewhere, I've seen 'em.  They were around last month when the Angels where getting hits, scoring runs by the saunders.jpgbucketful, and winning games (at one point going 21-6).  Someone question the clubhouse guy in Tampa Bay, because in the games prior to those in Tampa, the Angels were hitting like serious World Series contenders.  After last night's offensive no-show, the angels have lost 7 of their last nine and scored an anemic 28 runs.  One consolation (or excuse) for the Halos' recent play has been that they've been playing good teams with excellent pitching.  So, it can be understandable that during this stretch, the hitting has disappeared.  It won't be consolation come October when they possibly face one of these two teams in the playoffs.  As things stand now, the Angels would be facing-off against the Red Sox and the Twins would play the Rays.  If the Angels manage to get past the Chowds, they've shown in the last week they'll have their hands full in getting to the Series, regardless if it's against the Twins or the Rays.  Angels manager Mike Scioscia held a closed door meeting with the team after last night's loss, hopefully some of the things he did during the meeting was to assemble a search party, explore the yellow pages for a private detective, and consulted a psychic who can track down the missing lumber.

Daily Notes:

  • According to recent comments by Scoiscia, the Angels will mainly be looking to add a catcher and bullpen depth after the September 1st roster expansion.  One of the catchers who might be called up from AAA Salt Lake is 25 year-old Bobby Wilson.  Wilson's hitting .328 in a little over 200 AAA at-bats and has thrown out 24 of 54 runners attempting to steal.  Throwing out base runners has been a weak spot for the Halos as Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis have thrown out a combined 27 of 88 attempted steals, with recent starter Mathis getting just 8 of 39.  Wilson was a Texas league (Double A) all-star last year, but is not included on any lists of top prospects.  Brandon Wood will probably be called up to back-up Erick Aybar at SS, if not prior to September 1st, then shortly after.
  • Joe Saunders struggled again in last night's start.  Over the last 2 weeks, Saunders ERA is 6.23 while he's allowed 28 base runners in his last 17.1 innings and is winless in his last 4 outings.
  • Magic Number: 20

Let's Get Outta Here

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It was kind of nice finally seeing the Angels win in Tampa Bay and being able to watch the ESPN telecast of the game on the big screen in HD.  Although I did have to endure listening to Rick Sutcliffe and his lovefest of the Rays team (it was like he was having a bad Cialis trip and his erection was lasting more than 4 hours).  At one point he said he could see the Rays sweeping all of the season awards since they were that good.  I think Cliff Lee and Josh Hamilton might have something to say about that.  Anyway, I'm sure the Angels felt bad for breaking up his orgy.

Did anyone else notice Jered Weaver's meltdown in the 2nd inning?  He was cruising along, having struck out 3 of Jered Weaver.jpgthe first 5 hitters, until Angels' third baseman Chone Figgins misplayed a foul ball near the stands.  If you were watching the game, you'd have seen Weaver's confidence completely disappear just from the look on his face.  After that play, the Rays scored three runs on four straight hits.  I don't know if it's because he young, or whatever, but Weaver needs to control his emotions if he wants to take his game to the next level.  Things like the Figgins play are going to happen and he needs be able to have it not affect his game.  The Halos answered right back by plating 4 runs in the next inning highlighted by an Erick Aybar triple.  Weaver returned in the bottom half of the inning, having regained the lead and his mojo as he settled down and retired 13 of the next 14 batters.  He finished the night by striking out 9 hitters, a career high, in 6 innings.  But once again, the Angels bullpen wasn't able to hold the one run lead when Jose Arredondo gave up back-to-back doubles in the 8th.  Fortunately Garrett Anderson was able get an infield single to score the go-ahead run in the top of the 9th.  The hit was originally ruled an error, but was later changed, extending Anderson's 22 game hit streak to 23.  Frankie Rodriguez recorded his 48th save of the season, tying his own Angels' record.  K-Rod gave up a lead-off single, which had me thinking, "Here we go again.  Another bullpen blown save".  But Frankie was able to get a couple groundballs to end the game and preserve the win, avoiding another sweep in Tampa.

Daily Notes:

  • According to Mike DiGiovanni of the L.A. Times, "When Jose Arredondo gave up back-to-back doubles to B.J. Upton and Carlos Pena to tie the score, 4-4, in the eighth, it marked the sixth blown save in seven games for the Angels bullpen. Relievers also suffered four of the team's five losses this last week."  Also, within this piece, Orange County Register's Bill Plunkett wrote, "A night earlier, Shields struggled with his command, walking two of the four batters he faced and taking the loss as the Angels blew an eighth-inning lead.  Scioscia said he wanted to "stay away from Shieldsy" until he has a chance to work on some things in the bullpen before Thursday's game.  "We've got to get Shieldsy back on track," Scioscia said. "We're going to talk about a couple things tomorrow. … There are a couple things we want to clean up."  Am I the only one worried about the Angels' bullpen?
  • Howie Kendrick finally got a night off last night.  Kendrick had started 42 consecutive games at 2B since returning from the DL.  Hopefully the rest will kick-start his bat.  Howie's hitting .226 in August.
  • Garrett Anderson's hit streak of 23 games tied Texas' Michael Young for the second-longest in the majors.  The season high is 25 by the Rangers' Ian Kinsler.
  • Magic Number: 21 

Second Guessing the Manager

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I usually don't second guess Angels manager Mike Scioscia.  I figure he's a lot smarter than me and he has infinitely more information available than I do.  He knows how his pitchers are feeling; if they're tired or what they're match-ups are against the hitters they'd be facing.  So who am I to question his moves?  Well, his management of the bullpen in the 8th inning was so bizarre in last night's game against the Rays, I've got to say something.  Here's what happened:

Angels go into the bottom of the 8th with a 2-1 lead.  Ervin Santana has pitched a brilliant game, having taken a no-hitter into the 6th, but he allowed 2 hits in the 7th and had thrown 106 pitches. Time to make a change.  In comes Scot Shields, the usual set-up guy for just this situation.  All season Shields has been kind of streaky, you don't really Darren Oliver.jpgknow what you're going to get until he comes into the game.  Last night he brought nothing.  Nothing but a fastball that couldn't find the plate and a curve that he didn't trust.  The first batter he faces is Gabe Gross:
Pitch 1 - fastball, up and away
Pitch 2 - fastball, way high
Pitch 3 - fastball, bounced in front of the plate
Pitch 4 - fastball, inside and to the backstop
At this point it's obvious Shields doesn't have it, but Scioscia doesn't get anyone throwing in the pen.  The next batter, Jason Bartlett bunts the first pitch which Jeff Mathis throws into rightfield, nowhere close to the base.  It's kind of funny when watching the play again that Howie Kendrick, who was covering first on the bunt, makes no attempt to catch Mathis' throw since it was so far away from him.  So now there's 2nd and 3rd, no outs.  Up steps lefty Aki Iwamura.  Still no one is throwing in the pen.
Pitch 1 - fastball, down and in
Pitch 2 - fastball, up and away
(Scoiscia get Darren Oliver up in the pen)
Pitch 3 - fastball, up and away
Pitch 4 - fastball, strike one...barely
Pitch 5 - fastball, up and away.  Bases loaded.
This is the part of the game I really don't get.  I figured Scoiscia left Shields in the game just to face Iwamura, but not to give him anything to hit with 1B open.  He should be using Iwamura's at bat to get someone warmed up, but Oliver doesn't start throwing until Shields falls behind on two pitches that are still nowhere near the plate.  So, now in comes Oliver, right?  Nope, Scioscia's leaving Shields in to face B.J. Upton.
Pitch 1 - curve, fouled off
Pitch 2 - fastball, way up and in
Pitch 3 - curve, in the dirt
Pitch 4 - fastball, fouled off
Pitch 5 - fastball, strikeout
Okay, Shields man-ups and surprisingly strikes out Upton and now Oliver is coming in to get lefty Carlos Pena.  Here may be one of the Angels' biggest weaknesses, Oliver is the only lefty in the bullpen and he's not very good against lefties.  Left-handed batters are hitting .291 against him.  And now, Oliver's having problems throwing strikes and Pena's not swinging at his slider out of the zone.  Result, Oliver walks in the tying run.  Next up is Cliff Floyd who is 6-14 against Oliver, but Oliver does his job and strikes out Floyd.  In steps switch-hitting Willy Aybar.  I'm not sure why Scoiscia left Oliver in to face Aybar, he had Arredondo warmed up and Aybar is batting .218 against right-handed pitchers (as opposed to .258 against a LH).  Anyway, Aybar gets a base hit to left, two runs score and the Rays take a 2 run lead.

My questions to Scoiscia are 1) Why didn't he get someone throwing as soon as Shields walked the first hitter on 4 pitches?  2) Why didn't he get Oliver and Arredondo warmed sooner  3) Why did he leave Shields in to face Iwamura?  4) Why did he leave Shields in to face Upton (although this did result in a strikeout)  5) Why did he leave Oliver in to face Aybar?

I'm not even close to starting to panic.  This team is too good to start panicking.  Although the Angels have lost 3 in a row and 5 of the last 6, I figure this is just one of those streaks every team goes through at some point in the season.  They do need to get the bullpen situation straightened out by maybe looking to add another lefty, either through a waiver claim/trade or from the minors (Daniel Davidson?)

Daily Notes:

  • Garrett Anderson has now hit in 22 straight.
  • The Angels got a big break on a play in the 6th inning when B.J. Upton was called out for apparently making an attempt to go to second base.  The infield was plaing in with runners on the corners, but Santana couldn't come up with Teixeira's throw to first after Teix had fielded a goundball off of Upton's bat.  After the ball dribbled to Kendrick, who was backing up the play, he tagged Upton out.  Replays clearly showed Upton didn't make an attempt for second, but the play stood. 
  • Magic Number: 22  (Apparently I had the math wrong and thank God Texas keeps losing!)

100.9 MPH

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ESPN is currently running a feature on each team's greatest player.  According to polling for this feature, Nolan Ryan was named the Angels' greatest player with 60.3% of the votes (Garrett Anderson was second with Ryan SI Cover.jpg16.2%).  I'm not going to debate the results; the selection of Ryan can be debated forever, as with the selections for most teams.  I do know that while growing up, Ryan was my favorite Angel.  He was most fans favorite player back then since the Angels didn't really have any truly "great" players in the early '70s.  A couple of my favorite Angels baseball memories include games where I saw Ryan pitch.  Tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of one of my favorites.  On August 20th, 1974 against the Detroit Tigers, Ryan went for the fastest pitch record.  I had spent the summer of 1974 in Alaska with my brother and his family, as he was in the Air Force and was stationed outside of Fairbanks.  Back then, there wasn't much satellite coverage for T.V. (if at all) causing all of the programs to be two weeks behind the "lower 48" and the news was a couple days later too, making it harder to follow my favorite team.  Upon my return home and for my approaching birthday, my mom took me to an Angels game that featured Ryan going for the Guiness Book of world records for the fastest pitch thrown.  Since having a guy sitting behind the plate with a Juggs gun was still a few years away, aerospace contactor and builder of the Apollo space vehicle, Rockwell International, were called in to set up their sophisticated measurement gear to record the velocities of Ryan's pitches.  At the time, my mom worked for Rockwell and I remember thinking it was pretty cool that her company was responsible for measuring the pitches and she had, what I thought, a small role in the event.  I don't remember much about the actual game, but when doing research for this piece at Baseball-Reference, it appears to have been a really good game.  Ryan dueled Tigers' pitcher Mickey Lolich for 11 innings,nolan-ryan-hof-2.jpg with both pitchers throwing complete games, but Ryan ended up getting the loss by allowing a single and stolen base to Ben Oglivie and a run scoring single to Bill Freehan in the top of the 11th.  These were only two of the four hits Ryan allowed in the game, which also included 19 strikeouts.  The results of the measurements of Ryan's pitches weren't shown until after the game and were displayed inning-by-inning on the Big A scoreboard.  I don't remember the exact inning Ryan broke the record, but I do know it was late in the game, either the 7th or 8th.  They showed the results for each inning, with a pause between each to build the suspense.  When they finally showed the record breaker of 100.9 MPH, the crowd went wild...well about as wild as 12,000 fans can go.

Daily Notes:

  • The Angels lost their first game of their 3-game series in Tampa Bay 6-4.  I didn't get a chance to watch the game, but by reading the recap it doesn't look like the Halo's were ever really in the game.  It was the "down" Jon Garland last night as he gave up 4 earned runs and 10 hits (2 HR) in 6 innings.  You're never sure what you're going to get when Garland pitches.
  • Garrett Anderson extended his hitting streak to 21 with an RBI double in the 6th inning.  Anderson's hitting .376 since the All-Star break, but is only hitting .200 on the season against Tampa bay.  He does have a home run and 5 RBI against the Rays, so it's not that bad.
  • As of last night, Rays president Matt Silverman stated there was a 40% chance of Tuesday night's game being called off due to Tropical Storm Fay.  If the game is postponed, the two teams will play a doubleheader Wednesday.
  • Magic Number: 26

Stats The Way I Like It

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I'm a member of one of the most hated groups in society.  No, I don't sell Amway products; I'm a "stat-geek".  Many baseball fans will talk about stat geeks with a tone of distain in their voice, like when talking about their drunken uncle, but we stat geeks wear the label proudly.  I'm a stats junkie and I'm hopelessly addicted to numbers.  VORP?  Yeah, I've done that.  Isolated Power?  Umm, I'll take a tall glass.  Line Scores?  I've devoured more lines than Amy Winehouse.  The problem I have as a stats geek comes when I try to write interesting stories and those numbers get in the way.  Sometimes I'll rely too much on the numbers and miss the big picture.  My wife sometimes will read the things I write and when I ask her what she thought, she'll usually say something like, "Yeah, it fine, but I skipped the part with all the numbers".  What?  That's like reading Playboy for the articles!  I subscribe to the addicts' credo, "Too much is never enough".  That is, unless you're talking about the cough syrup of statistical analysis, the useless situational stats.  I'm not really interested in situational statistics.  I don't care if a player hits over .400 during day games that follow night games when the opposing team has a lefty on the mound.  Or something like this stat I read in the LA Times; The Angels travel to Tampa to play the AL East leading Rays.  The Rays are 20-2 when they play in front of crowds larger than 25,000 and 16-1 when they play in front of 30,000 at home.  Does that mean they'd be undefeated if there's more than 35,000 fans at Tropicana Field?  There was an interesting stat from the same article that stated the Halo's 4, 5, and 6 hitters were 0-31 in this past weekend's three game series in Cleveland.  Guerrero, Hunter, and Kendrick stranded 19 runners during their hitless performances.  Friday's game against this year's surprise Cy Young favorite, Cliff Lee, was understandable.  Sometimes good teams get beat by good pitchers, and Lee has been very good this season.Aybar.jpg  But in losing their first series since June against a poor Indians' line-up, the Angels failed to get the timely hits with runners in scoring position.  If it hadn't been for the shoddy Indian's defense who committed 4 errors during Saturday's game, the Angels may have been swept.

Everyone knows baseball is an up-and-down sport.  What that means is even good teams go through down times when things just aren't clicking.  The Angels are suffering through one of those times after losing 3 of their last 4 games, and their character will be tested when they go to Tampa.  Statistics can't explain what's going wrong, especially situational statistics.  This series could be a preview of this year's AL championship.  Let's just hope the fans stay away.

Daily Notes:

  • Maicer Izturis had surgery on his left thumb and will miss the rest of the season.  There's a rumor the Angels are looking for a veteran shortstop and David Eckstein's name has popped up.  Eckstein was a member of the 2002 Championship team, but he's not the answer.  In fact, I don't think there's really a question.  Erick Aybar is playing well and Sean Rodriguez will fill in when needed.  Once the roster expands in a couple weeks, Brandon Wood will be with the big club after playing most of his AAA games at short.
  • The games in Tampa may have to be postponed because of Tropical Storm Fay.  If the games are postponed, they'll have to be made up during the remaining off days.  The Angels' next day off is September 1st.  If they have to play a game on that day, it'll mean the Angels will play 25 days in a row.  I don't know if the bargaining agreement will allow that.
  • Magic Number: 27 

What Is "Dominance"?

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The dictionary defines dominance as "the disposition of an individual to assert control in dealing with others".  I like that definition, especially in how it applies to pitching.  In pitching, for a relief pitcher to completely dominate the opposition he would have to come into a game and not allow a base runner.  K-Rod3.jpgIn the ultimate and perfectly dominate performance, a pitcher would strikeout the side with 9 pitches.  In a lesser instance of dominance it would be to strike out the side without allowing a base runner.  And finally, the least dominating performance on the 'dominance scale" is to pitch an inning without allowing a base runner.  I don't have the resources to go through all of this years' appearances to count the number of times any of these happened, but I did go through some of the top reliever's game logs and manually counted the number of times they pitched a perfect inning and the number of times they pitched 1 inning and had 3 strike outs.  You'll find those results below.  I'm sure this data doesn't show how effective a pitcher has been, in fact, I'm sure it probably doesn't show much of anything other than the number of perfect innings thrown, but I did think it was interesting (and hopefully you do too).

In my previous posting, I wrote about Frankie Rodriguez not appearing to me to be as dominating as he once was.  Within that post I stated he has had only 17 appearances where he pitched at least one inning and retired the side in order.  Since this blog is pretty new and we don't have much traffic, I posted the K-Rod piece on an Angel's fansite I visit regularly.  I was looking for some feedback and comments on what I had written, maybe some other point of views, etc.  One of the comments I received was basically stating I was full of shit and what relevance did the 17 perfect innings have to do with how well K-Rod was pitching.  The comment also asked how many perfect innings did other closers have and how did Frankie compare.  I thought that was a very good question, so I set out to find out.  Here is what I found:

Player Games 1-2-3 3K Pct. Perfect
Soria, KC 49 27   55.1%
Wagner, NYM 45 24 2 53.3%
Percival, TB 41 19   46.3%
Papelbon, BOS 50 23 2 46.0%
Rauch, ARI 60 26 2 43.3%
Linebrink, CHW 42 18   42.9%
Buchholz, COL 51 21   41.2%
Saito, LAD 39 16 3 41.0%
Morrow, SEA 40 16 1 40.0%
Hoffman, SD 40 16   40.0%
Rivera, NYY 48 19 2 39.6%
Wood, CHC 48 19 2 39.6%
Marmol, CHC 61 23 2 37.7%
Wheeler, TB 52 19   36.5%
Jenks, CHW 43 15   34.9%
Rodriguez, LAA 56 17   30.4%
Nathan, MIN 52 15   28.8%

According to the above data, Joakim Soria of the Royals has been the most dominate relief pitcher so far this year, and K-Rod has been the 16th dominate.  I'm not claiming that Soria has been a better pitcher than Rodriguez based on this information, even though it'd be hard to claim otherwise based on all of the available statistics.  I was surprised to see how far down on the list Rodriguez did land.

Daily Notes:

  • Maicer Izturis looks to be heading to the DL after re-injuring his thumb during Wednesday night's game.  The Angels already have Sean Rodriguez up from AAA to back-up Erick Aybar at short.  Kendry Morales will be called up to take Izturis' roster spot.
  • Magic Number: 27

Blown Save Raises Questions

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Last night's loss to the Seattle Mariners raises some questions the Angels will need to address this off-season, ifK-Rod2.jpg not sooner.  Closer Frankie Rodriguez, who will become a free agent after this season, looked awful in the ninth inning giving up 3 runs while recording just one out.  K-Rod has been very good this season, on pace to shatter the season save record, but my perception of Frankie's season is that he seems to be living on the edge in most of his appearances.  His BB/IP and H/IP are up, while his strikeouts are down.  Not a good sign.  Of his 56 games this season, he has only 17 appearances in which he pitched at least an inning and did not allow a base runner.  This is the first time in his career he has allowed batters' OBP to exceed .300.  Is he hurting?  I don't know, but I went back and watched last night's outing and noted he topped out at 91mph.  I then went and watched a couple games from 2006 and saw him throwing 94-95.  It doesn't seem like he can blow hitters away like he used to.  Instead, he's trying to hit corners or make hitters swing at curves and sliders out of the zone.  Hitters have been more patient by not swinging at his off-speed stuff, waiting for him to throw a strike or taking a base on balls.  Either way, resulting in more base runners.  He no longer just goes right after a hitter with what used to be an overpowering fastball.  Some pitchers will hide an injury while they try to work through it.  Earlier this year, Indians closer Joe Borowski stated he felt like he was throwing underwater because his shoulder was hurting.  He stated this after giving up 7 earned runs over his previous three games.  Would have been nice to have mentioned that earlier, Joe.  If Frankie is hurting would he say anything?  He's got 15 million reasons not too.  As his free agency approaches, an injury would jeopardize his big payday. 

The Angels aren't going to make any changes this year, nor should they unless K-Rod's performances the next few outings match last night's, but their closer situation will become one of the off season's top priorities.  K-Rod has already said he'll test the free agency market and is looking for a multi-year deal in the $15 million range.  If this is the case, the Angels should let him walk.  Use that cash to re-sign Mark Teixeira if they're able to.  If not, $15 million can go a long ways in building a dominating bullpen.  I've always been a proponent of not over-spending for a closer.  There always seems to be good relief pitching available.  The Angels already have a replacement available to them in Jose Arrendondo.  He's the best pitcher no one is talking about.  There are also options available in the minors in Jason Bulger.  Bulger, who will be 30 later this year and is considered old for a minor leaguer, had a brief shot in the majors this year, but was completely ineffective.  At AAA Salt Lake, Bulger has been very good.  In 38 innings he's struck out 67 batters and has not given up a home run.  Pretty impressive considering the small ballparks of the PCL.  In his 5.2 inning this year with the big club he gave up 7 hits, 2 of those home runs, but less than 6 innings isn't much of a sample size.  Last season, Bulger pitched just 6.3 innings and was somewhat effective.  He struck out 8 and gave up 5 hits (0 HR).  Again, not much of a sample size.  Bring him up, if not now, in September and see what he can do with more opportunities.  The Angels also have Kevin Jepsen down in AAA.  Jepsen just turned 24 and was a Futures Game selection.  At two levels this year, Jepsen has given up just 37 hits (3 HR) in 57 innings and has struck out 55 batters.  Another course the Angels could pursue is through trade.  The Halos have an abundance of positional players, both at the major league and minor league levels who can bring in bullpen depth.  Either way, the Angels will have some tough bullpen questions to answer very soon.

Daily Notes:

  • The Mark Teixeira trade almost paid a huge dividend last night.  Teix hit a go ahead 2-run home run in the 3rd and then hit a game tying shot in the bottom of the 9th to keep the Angels in the game.  Since acquiring Teixeira and having hit ahead of Vlad Guerrero, Vladdy has gone 18 for 50 (.360) with 5 home runs and 16 RBI.  The Angels are 9-3 in the 12 games with Teix.
  • Ervin Santana had another good outing, going 6.1 innings before tiring in the 7th.  His line would have looked better and he would have been in line for the win, but Howie Kendrick made a rare goof on a double play groundball that would have ended the inning with the lead intact.
  • Garrett Anderson has an 18 game hit streak going.  Anderson has been on fire the second half of the season, hitting .387 during the streak.
  • Magic Number: 28

The Angels Make It Hard

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Get your mind out of the gutter, the Angels aren't THAT good.  The Angels are playing so well they make it hard to write something new, something you haven't already read or heard.  We at The Halo Is Lit want to be a little different than other blogs by looking at things from another perspective.  A rehash of what's already been written in the local rags, or what you've heard on ESPN just won't cut it here.  So, coming up with new and interesting tidbits is hard.  I could write about how the Halos have the best record in baseball at 75-43, but you already know that.  Or they have the largest division lead in franchise history a with a 15 game lead over Texas, but you've probably already read that on another site.  How about this, their record since July is 21-5 when Juan Rivera is in the starting line-up, which was improved upon when the Angels powered their way past the Seattle Mariners last night.  Rivera was one of three Angels to homer in the game, hitting a bomb to start a 5th inning rally.  Vlad Guerrero hit a 2-run shot later in the inning to put the Halos ahead and Garrett Anderson added to the night's home run total by hitting his 13th of the season in the 8th.

Since I'm human (at least I was the last time I checked) I'm constantly looking for what's wrong in a situation and what I can bitch about.  And me being a man (yeah, checked that too), I'm always looking for something to fix.  Well, nothing wrong with the Angels, nothing that needs fixin'.  Everything's fine in Anaheim.  (Hey, that's kind of a rhyme.  Maybe I can write a poem!)

They swing their bats
and the runs start flowing
The pitchers throw strikes
The World Series we're going.

Alright, bad idea.

Daily Notes:

  • Four of the 5 Angels' starting pitchers have recorded at least 10 wins.  John Lackey has 9.  Once Lackey wins another game, it'll be the first time in Angels' history that they have had 5 starting pitchers with double-digit wins.  Doesn't compare to the 1971 Baltimore Orioles who had four 20 game winners, but anytime a team does something they've never done before it is impressive.  The Angels do have the chance to produce two 20 game winners with Joe Saunders (14-5) and Ervin Santana (13-5), the last time that happened was 1973 when Nolan Ryan went 21-16 and Bill Singer had a 20-14 record.
  • While researching some stats for another posting, I ran across something interesting in Angels' history.  Back in 1976, Bobby Bonds led the team in home runs.  Want to guess how many he had?  Get this, Bonds' team leading home run total was 10.  That's right, 10 whopping homers.  They hit a grand total of 63 as a team.  I've forgotten how bad some Angels teams had been.  Makes me appreciate this year's team even more.
  • Garrett Anderson once again continues to revive his season during the second half.  In 2007, Anderson had 65 RBI and batted .305 after the all-star break.  This year, he's leading the majors in batting with a .393 average since the break.
  • Magic number: 29 

Day Off

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While the Angels enjoy their second day off in the last five days, I thought I'd write about one of my favorite baseball days.  Thanks to RetroSheet, I was able to find the exact date and games that involved my adventure.  If you haven't been to RetroSheet, check it out.  It's an amazing website that has compiled boxscores for all games from 1953-2007 (most with play-by-play narative) and a few game from 1871-1952.  It's a cool site.  Anyway, back in 1988 I noticed that it would be possible to see all 5 California teams play in 24 hours, so my friend Steve and I decided to see if we could do it. 

On Tuesday July 26th we flew to San Francisco to watch the Dodgers and Giants play a doubleheader at Candlestick park.  The Dodgers swept the doubleheader, with the second game going into extra innings.  I don't remember much about the games, but I do remember the experience of Candlestick.  During the late innings of the second game the fog started rolling in and they blew a loud foghorn.  I thought that was pretty funny.  They also gave out pins to the fans who stayed for the extra innnings because of the cold.  They were some sort of 'die-hard" fan pin that read something like "I survive extra innings at Candlestick" or something.  Also during the game, I called my wife back home in SoCal to tell her to start recording the game because Steve and I were going to try and sneak down behind the plate.  Wasn't much sneaking involved, we just walked down and found two empty seats right behind the plate.  We were the two idiots waving at the camera for a couple innings.  Later, we walked around the stadium for a while, checking things out.  If I remember correctly, I thought Candlestick was kind of a dump, but in a good way.  Classy-dump.  Old school baseball dump.  And cold.  Here it was end of July and it was cold at a baseball game.  I don't mean "chilly" cold, but eskimo COLD.  I think it took a few days for my testicles to come out of hiding.

The next afternoon we went to Anaheim Stadium to watch the Angels play Oakland.  Back in 1988 you didn't havewally_joyner.jpg to buy tickets in advance to get a decent seat for an Angels' game, so we figured we'd just buy whatever was available the day of the game.  As we were walking up to the staduim, an older gentleman approached us and asked if we needed tickets.  We said yes that we did, and he gave us two tickets.  He said we could have them, but with the stipulation that we didn't have any horns, bells or other load noise-makers.  Of course, we didn't, so the tickets were ours...free!  And they were awesome tickets, behind the plate on the field level, under the net (what would be Diamond Club seating now).  We watched the Angels defeat the A's 9-8 in 12 innings, with Wally Joyner going 3 for 4 with two home runs and 6 RBI.

After the Angel game ended, we jumped in my car, drove down the 5 freeway and caught the Padres hosting the Astros.  This game featured Nolan Ryan starting for the 'Stros and beating the Padres 4-1.  Nolan Ryan is one of my all-time favorite players and at the time I had "Shrine" in my den, so it was a big treat for me to see him pitch again.  The last time I had been to a game he started was during his days with the Angels.

Once the "day" was over, I figured out we saw all 5 California teams, acted like dorks on T.V., watched 41 innings of baseball, saw my favorite player at the time have a great game, and one of my all-time favorite pitchers get a win, all within about 24 hours.

Daily Notes:

  • No big news, Angels swept the Yankees.  Just another day in the Angels' march to a World Series championship.
  • Magic number: 31

 

This Is Fun

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Daily Notes:

  • Let's see, 10-5 Friday and then 11-4 Saturday.  Does that mean the Angels will win on Sunday by a score of 12-3?  It's definitly possible with the way this team is playing.  They're 30 games over .500.  This means if they play .500 for the rest of the seaon, they'll finish with a record of 96-66 which would be the second best win-loss record in Angels history (in 2002 they had a 99-63 record).  If they keep up their current pace of .629, we'll witness the first Angels team to finish with more than 100 wins (102-60).  Here's an interesting tidbit.  Its been over 30 years since a team has won exactly 102 games.  The Kansas City Royals went 102-60 in 1977, but then lost to the Yankees in the playoffs.  That was the World Series when Reggie Jackson hit 3 home runs on 3 pitches in game 6 to earn the name Mr. October.
  • Once again the Angels were held down by another rookie pitcher.  The Yank's starter Saturday was Dan Giese (born in Anaheim) who was making only his 3rd career start.  Maybe the guy was pumped up pitching in his hometown.  There's a lot of incentive to do well when mom and dad, grandma, brother and sister, the chick who turned you down for the prom, the kid who used to throw you in the dumpster everyday are in the stands watching.  As I wrote, he did well, but the bullpen didn't back him up.
  • The Orioles called up a relief pitcher yesterday.  Why do I mention it?  The dude's name is Rocky Cherry.  Man, talk about the kid who got thrown in the dumpster everyday.  You just know he got a lot of crap for that name.  Should have chosen a career in porn.
  • The Yankees were 51-1 in games they led after 6 innings.  That's pretty impressive.  So is giving up 8 runs in an inning.
  • Cool article about Mark Teixeira in the LA Times.  I was sceptical about the trade that brought him to the Halos, mainly because I really like Casey Kotchman.  But I have to admit, this is a whole different team with Teix and the recent results prove that.  A quick quote from the article: 
    Torii Hunter noted that when Teixeira came to the team, the Angels cautiously observed their new slugger, unsure how he'd fit in. "We watched him come up to Vladdy and shake Vladdy's hand and introduce himself," Hunter said. "It was like, 'OK, he's open and confident, he's not going to sit on the sidelines or separate himself from us.' Then we saw how he was in games. He's sitting next to me and we're talking about pitchers and tendencies. It's like, 'OK, this guy is a baseball player. All business. Loves the game.' This guy is perfect for this team."    

l_40a598647d0e0647303328efe7a011af.jpgThis is my first post on thehaloislit.com and I must say I'm very excited. It's hard not to be, with the Angels playing so well and all, but I'm getting stoked on the fact that I was asked to participate with this blog, thus giving me a chance to kill two hanging curves with one swing. Writing and Angels baseball...this should be sweet.

 

What a weekend to start, too, as we have the Yankees(63-52) visiting for three games, and who also took games on Saturday and Sunday of last week to split that series. They've been kind of flakey lately, and apparently some people care if they don't make the playoffs. Those people also watch Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader religiously.  I know i've really been missing home games where our home team gets out-cheered. Haven't you? Yes, I'm kidding and being somewhat bitter, but hopefully that can be just one of the many functions of this blog: make more Angels fans. 

Pitching Match-ups

NY-Ian Kennedy (0-3)

vs.

LAA-Jared Weaver(9-9)

This is basically the battle for SoCal props. Ian Kennedy is a Huntington Beach, CA righty who played college ball at USC. Jared Weaver was born in Northridge and was a star at Cal State Long Beach. This is it, folks. The ultimate Cali showdown. I can tell you this, reader: Weaver's hair is way longer. Make of that what you will.

Prediction of the Night: Brett Favre WILL be mentioned somehow by the announcers during the telecast. (It's on FSN, by the way.)

 

Let the Revolution Begin!

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Viva la Revolución!  It's time to take back what rightfully belongs to us, the Halo Nation.  We will no longer beCheAngelShirt-small.jpg oppressed by the overlords of baseball information (ESPN) and their nightly propaganda broadcast (Baseball Tonight).  Mainstream media will cover the overthrow of the baseball world.  Although, many feel we are the elitist class because of our impressive record, we will prove to the masses that our dominating pitching and our imposing line-up are ready to take center stage in the baseball world.  No longer will we sit idly by while the propaganda machine spews out its nightly misinformation and half-truths of Red Sox and Yankee superiority.  We will be led by courageous and respected men, willing to sacrifice their individual statistics for our cause by hitting behind the runner, taking an extra pitch, laying down a bunt, taking the extra base and powering the ball to unreachable distances.  The peoples' confidence lies with respected men such as El Presidente Guerrero, the Hula Dula Domino Rula Torii Hunter, newly enlightened Mark Teixeira and the rest of their band of ball playing brothers.  The people have the right to know that baseball has a new leader.  Our ascendancy to the top of the Power Rankings proves the time is now.  The time for action.  The time for a Red October.

Daily Notes:

  • Brandon Wood is killing the ball in AAA.  He's hitting .392 with 13 home runs in his last 21 games.  Apparently he's learned what a strike is, shown by his increased walk total during the past month.
  • There were rumors the Angels put in a claim on Orioles' relief pitcher Chad Bradford.  Bradford eventually eneded up with the Tampa Bay Rays for a player to be named.  The submariner Bradford is having a nice season out of the bullpen and would have been a good addition to the Angels' roster.
  • According to the Orange County Register, Torii Hunter is doing his best to sell soon-to-be free agent Mark Teixeira on signing with the Angels this off-season.  "I'm going to wine and dine him, let him see the OC, a little bit of L.A.," Hunter said. "I'm just going to speak good about the place, point out how nice the weather is. You can tan naked if you want."
  • The Angels' Magic Number to clinch the division is 37.  Their Magic Number to clinch home field advantage throughout the playoffs is 47.

This Moment

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I've had many new moments in my life recently.  That kind of sounds dumb, new moments.  Every moment is new, each having the ability to become life changing events, or keys to new feelings, or at the very least new memories.  What I mean by new moments for me are times in my life where I've never previously experienced what was happening.  This last year has been rough.  The moments have been painful.  The moment I realized my business wasn't going to continue and was shutdown.  The moment the property went into foreclosure.  The moment the bill collectors started calling our home.  And the moment I understood I haven't lived up to my own expectations.  Don't get me wrong, there are good moments too.  Every afternoon, right around 2 o'clock when my 2 year-old daughter climbs into the chair I'm sitting in and grabs hold of my thumb.  She sinks into the spot next to me and falls asleep.  This is more than just a moment.  It's a wish come true.  This is the powerball of the fatherhood lottery.

I've been watching more Angel games this year than in previous years.  I've always been an Angels fan, but not like this year.  I think I've missed less than 15 games this year.  It would have been less, but work sometimes gets in the way.  As everyone knows, the Angels have been doing fantastic this year, but this isn't the reason I've seen more games.  When I'm watching the games, those moments that happen each inning, I don't think of my business, or of foreclosures, or my fading dreams.  Those moments are pushed aside by Torii Hunter's walk-off grand slam, or Frankie Rodriguez's nerve-racking save, the rejuvenation of Garrett Anderson, or of a no-hitter loss.  The Angels have become my therapy.  They've covered my wounded moments with the medicine of winning ballgames and World Series expectations.  Sometimes my daughter sits next to me and watches too.  She'll sit there for as long as her 2 year-old attention span will let her.  Her moments don't last as long as mine.  Those moments to me become ours and will never go away.   

As I sit here writing this, I can hear my 12 year-old son in the other room singing "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin.  He's playing a game on the computer while having music play in the background.  Zep is my favorite band and something the two of us have recently started to share.  He doesn't know that I'm listening, which is probably why he's singing so loudly.  And he doesn't know all of the lyrics, so he fills in what he doesn't get, "I don't know, but I've been told.  Phillerup woman ain't got no so".  It makes me laugh, probably because I have no idea what Robert Plant is singing too.  It doesn't matter to him what the words are, it doesn't matter to me either.  Because I know, at this moment, my son is singing for me. 

Watered Down Offense

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Yet again, the Angels offense was shut down by a pitcher making his major league debut.  Last night, after toiling in the minors for 9 years, Orioles' pitcher Chris Waters went 8 innings against the Halos.  Waters gave up only one hit, a second inning single to Vlad Guerrero, in his first big league start.  It's becoming a trend with debut pitchers facing-off against the Angel squad.  Four pitchers have made their major league debut against the Angels, three getting wins, and all four pitching like veterans.  Matt Harrison of the Rangers, Charlie Morton from the Braves, Red Sox pitcher Justin Masterson, and now Waters have all made the Angels look like one of the minor league teams they had just faced in their previous start. The Angels have managed to score just six runs in the 27 innings these newbies have pitched, losing all four games.  I'm wondering what kind of advance scouting the Angels do, because whatever it is, it's not working.  Opposing teams might want to call up whoever the next pitcher is in their AAA rotation to start based on this season's outcomes.

Daily Notes:

  • Jon Garland had a decent outing.  After a rocky start where he gave up 4 straight hits and 2 runs in the first inning, he settled down the remaining 6 innings he pitched.  With a 10-7 record, the Angels have to be happy about the preseason deal they made to get him.  Garland's been a steady starter at the backend of the Angels rotation, pretty much doing exactly what was expected, keeping his team in most of his starts and working deep into games.
  • Mark Teixeira has yet to live up to hype.  He has added the desired "presence" to the line-up, but hasn't delivered much to support the hot-and-cold offense.  Teix is too good of a hitter for this to continue and Halo fans just need to show some patience.
  • What was up with last night's line-up?scoiscia.jpg  Both Matthews AND Quinlan getting starts in the same game?  Wouldn't it be more logical, if you're going to rest players, not to do it in the same game?  And why Quinlan at DH when Reggie Willits was available?  I would think it'd make more sense to have Matthews hit in the DH spot if his knee is bothering him and Willits play the field.  Or "rest" Rivera in the DH slot, especially against a lefty starter.  Scoiscia is an awesome manager, but sometimes he doesn't make any sense.
  • Speaking of goofy line-ups, Scoiscia's still hitting Aybar/Izturis in the 2-hole and Howie Kendrick and his .327 batting average near the bottom (last night he hit 6th).
  • Interesting article in the L.A. Times rag about the Angels starting to be more patient at the plate.  Hopefully Teixeira's methods are rubbing off on the Angels, and he can avoid Mickey Hatcher messing with him.
  • The 6.4 Runs per game by the Angels during 25 games in July is the second-highest monthly average in franchise history. 

Ouch!

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10 unearned runs!  Defense was supposed to be one of the Halo's strong points, but Sunday's game against theError.jpg Yanks shows what happens when holes in the defense appear.  The 10 unearned runs given up to the Bombers tied a franchise record set May 31, 1978 against the White Sox.  Not the type of records the Angels are looking to break (or tie).  After losing Sunday, the Angels finished their east coast swing with a 7-3 record.  Not bad if you look at the "big picture", but definitely a let down after heading into New York at 5-1.  In years past a split at Yankee stadium would be acceptable, but this year's team is probably the strongest ever and the two loses could have...and should have been Angel wins.  Wait, I suppose they were never really in Saturday's game against Mussina, so taking 3 of 4 would be more realistic.

Some notes:

  • The Angels have committed 33 errors in their last 38 games.  Previously, the Angels' fielders had committed only 32 errors in their first 73 games.
  • Who sucks?  Hint:  His name rhymes with "Shmusmatthews"
  • Mark Teixeira hit his first home run as an Angel...and it was a grand slam.  Teix had just one RBI and had stranded 11 runners (including Sunday's game) since joining the Angels last Wednesday.
  • Reggie Willits didn't have an official at-bat Sunday.  He walked all 4 plate appearances which must have caused Angels' hitting coach Mickey Hatcher to pull out some of his hair.  Hatcher follows the Dusty Baker mantra of taking your hacks; walks are over-rated and only clog the bases.  I hope Hatcher's head is bald by the end of the year, taking pitches and walks are a good thing. 
  • The Angels still have the best record in the majors at 69-42.  

ESPN and East Coast Bias

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I was thinking the other day how hard it was before the internet to be a fan a team that wasn't from the area where you lived.  A fan was limited to daily box scores, "This Week in Baseball", and the rare appearance on network television's Saturday game of the week.  If you were lucky, one of the national sports magazines such as Sports Illustrated or the Sporting News would do a story about one of your team's players who was having a stand out season or a brief write-up about the team's recent accomplishment.  That was it.  I currently live 2000 miles from Anaheim, but I get to watch every game, read the local rags' write-ups and get daily reports about what's going on in the Angels' baseball world.  It was kind of fun being an Angels fan because they were always under the national baseball radar.  It was like being in a secret that only a few other people knew about.  Even in Southern California the Angels were treated like the ugly step-kid after their new brother or sister was born.  The Dodgers were always the lead story on the local sports reports, the top story in the sports section and favorite area team among the "cool people".  After their 2002 World Series win, the Angels gained a large bandwagon following in SoCal, but remained ignored throughout the rest of the nation.  Which was alright with us, our secret was still intact...at least outside of Orange County. But now ESPN has heard a rumor.  The Angels have a pretty good team.

Youk.jpgESPN has been the network of Red Sox Nation and Yankee fans for as long as I can remember.  It's just like being in California again, sitting through the Dodgers' highlights on the local news and sifting through the sports section to finally get some Angels coverage.  But now it's stories about Giambi's mustache, Peter Gammons Red Sox reports (hey Pete, you don't work for the Boston Globe anymore!), or either team's pitching problems.  Three weeks ago in ESPN's power rankings, the Angels' note read, "The Angels open the second half tied with the Cubs for the best record in baseball", but the Red Sox ranked ahead of them.  It was only after sweeping the Chowds in Anaheim did the Angels move above them (and yet the Sox remained in the #2 slot ahead of the Cubs).  And then, after sweeping the Red Sox twice and leaving the Sucks looking like a team of bobble heads on top of an out-of-balance washing machine, did ESPN place the Halos at the top of their power rankings.

I haven't even mentioned the number of times the nationally televised game features the Yankees or Red Sox.  I tried going back and counting the times one of these teams were on the telecast, but ESPN doesn't list their television schedule after the games have been played.  It seemed like every time I turned on ESPN, I was treated to another East Coast telecast featuring announcers falling all over themselves trying to win the favor of Yankee or Red Sox fans.

Well, it now looks like the secret is out.  The Bristol Boys have jumped on the bandwagon and have started to notice that team out west with the best record in baseball.  I admit, its kind of cool seeing Halo red placed so prominently on the ESPN site.  Welcome to the party guys, where ya been?

Halos Continue to Roll

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After taking two of three from the O's in Baltimore and sweeping the Chowds in Boston, the Angels marched into Anderson.jpgYankee Stadium and doubled up the Skanks last night 12-6.  Providing the firepower last night were Torii Hunter, Vlad Guerrero and Juan Rivera.  Each hit 3-run homers, Hunter's and Rivera's coming off of Andy Pettitte who gave up 9 earned runs.  Garrett Anderson went 4 for 5 for the second night in a row.

Although the Angels improved their MLB-best record to 68-40 and increased the largest division lead in franchise history to 12.5 games over the second place Rangers, they lack the swagger that some teams would try to pull off.  The Halos are quietly walking through the American League winning series after series by playing team ball.  No one player is providing the "get on my back and I'll take you there" attitude, but playing the type of baseball most teams dream about.  Each night someone steps up and carries the team, whether it be dominating pitching, timely hitting and on some nights both.  When there were early season doubts about their starting pitching after losing both John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, Joe Saunders and Ervin Santana stepped up to provide the one-two slapdown that good teams can inflict.  This pitching also carried the team when runs were hard to come by after injuries to Howie Kendrick and Chone Figgins. 

Since replacing Gary Matthews Jr. with Juan Rivera on July 10th, the Angels have lost 3 games.  Over the last month Rivera has hit .311 while hitting 6 home runs and driving in 16.  Rivera has over half the RBI as Matthews, in almost 200 less at-bats.  Matthews sucks and should be used only as a defensive replacement or pinch-runner from here on out.  His signing may go down in Angels' history as one of the all-time worst.  Making the situation worse, besides wasting $9 million on Matthews this year, his full no-trade clause until after 2009 guarantees he'll be with team for awhile (unless he gets tired of sitting on the bench and waives it).  After 2009, Matthews can block a trade to only 4 suckers, I mean teams.




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