6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Minus Weaver (who didn't last long enough to even record a single out), the Angels did surprisingly well by running a chain of relievers out there. Bobby Cassevah, whom I expected would get impaled, allowed all his inherited baserunners to score, but settled down in subsequent innings to limit the Yankees to just the three runs (all charged to Weaver, unfairly) plus one more on a Curtis Granderson solo homer in the second. Cassevah should not be mistaken for a guy you want in a tight spot, but he performed adequately under the circumstances.

That opened the door to Takahashi, Carpenter, and Isringhausen, all of whom gave up at least one run, so that by the end of that line, the score was all knotted at eight. Then Cory Wade, then Mark Trumbo — who, by the way, ended the day a mere single away from hitting for the cycle. Mike Trout homered earlier in the game, against Phil Hughes, whom the Angels pretty reliably battered and must by now be running into significant questions about his longevity in the rotation. He exited the game with a 5.64 ERA, snapping a string of five straight good starts.

Good show, guys. That's seven wins in a row. I'm still not convinced this is anything but a .500 team, give or take a few wins, but it's nice to see a few rack up on the W side.

Angels recap • ESPN Box

Labels: angels, recaps, woo hoo, yankees

// posted by Rob @ 7:34 AM link  //  0 comments

The other deal, unfortunately, looks like a real dud, with Mark Ellis getting badly overpaid to the tune of 2 years/$8.75M. There's really no justification for this level of compensation, especially for an essentially just-over-replacement level player. On the other hand, Fangraphs says his value last year was $6M combined to the A's and Rockies, which says something about teams willing to pony up for mediocre bats up the middle.

Labels: dodgers, stupid ideas, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 12:49 PM link  //  2 comments

Hallelujah and amen.

Update: Here's the longer-form story in the Times.

Update 2: Not exactly an update, really, but more like a coda: earlier, the Times reported that Mark Cuban wanted to buy the team but was dissuaded when Frank wanted one billion dollars for it.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 10:01 PM link  //  0 comments

"This is clearly, in my mind, not an appropriate occasion to turn this hearing into a trial on the commissioner," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross said.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 9:32 AM link  //  0 comments

Update: And here it is. Looks like such a move could give MLB a nice out: they won't have to find an excuse to force a sale if one of the owners asks for it.

Related: Via Abort McCourt, a Forbes story from Mike Oznanian indicating that the Dodgers are days away from defaulting on player salaries. We knew that, of course, but what I didn't know is that there's a 48 hour window from missing payroll to the time that MLBPA can start the 10-day free agency clock.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 6:03 PM link  //  1 comments

And as one of my Facebook friends would say, it's Dan Haren Day.

I have to admit, I was kind of surprised to see Jeff Mathis behind the dish today, but Hank Conger did catch the other two games of the series. True Grich has a nice summary of the arguments for Conger to take over the number one slot. What might be even more interesting is a discussion of the relative merits of Mathis vs. Bobby Wilson, and whether the team should be carrying three catchers.

ESPN Box • Recap

Labels: angels, recaps, sweep, white sox, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 2:19 PM link  //  1 comments

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has rejected a proposal under which Fox would have loaned about $200 million to Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, three people familiar with the discussions told The Times.

McCourt would have used the Dodgers' cable television rights as collateral, extending the team's current contract with Fox by as many as four years if he did not repay the loan, according to the individuals, who were briefed on the proposal but who are not authorized to discuss it.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 9:19 PM link  //  0 comments

... it's baaaack ....

Above: CSULB Dirtbags in a scrimmage against the alumni team. Not sure who this is making this awkward catch, but — dayam, it's baseball!

Labels: dirtbags, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 6:05 PM link  //  2 comments

Update: Commentary on this at Southside Sox is surprisingly mixed. I'd think, given his ex-Cubbitude, general lack of OBP, SLG, or throwing skills, that he'd be anathema. A story on that same site names the PTBNLs as relatively undistinguished righties John Ely (a starter) and Jon Link (a reliever). Neither are hard throwers, which essentially makes this a salary dump.

Labels: dodgers, hot stove, trades, transactions, white sox, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 9:35 AM link  //  6 comments

Eleven wins, boys. Let's get cracking.

Touching: the team ran out to the Nick Adenhart photo in center field to touch it as a man.

By handing Texas a loss, it erodes Boston's magic number to one; the Sawx lost 11-5 to Toronto.

Update 9/29: BTF: "Angels Trail Rangers By Only Nine Games in 5th Order Standings!!!" Best comment on that thread, by Shredder (#18):

I didn't see the celebration last night because Extra Innings always cuts away right when the game ends, but my favorite part was Fuentes tossing his empty over the outfield wall. Probably won't be the only thing that leaves his hand and goes over the wall in the next couple weeks.

ESPN Box

Labels: angels, rangers, recaps, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 10:10 PM link  //  0 comments

Labels: brewers, giants, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 11:01 PM link  //  0 comments

... steroids keep you young. You may not like to hear it stated that way, because steroids are evil, wicked, mean and nasty and youth is a good thing, but…that’s what it means. Steroids help the athlete resist the effects of aging.

Well, if steroids help keep you young, what’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong with that is that steroids may help keep players “young” at some risk to their health, and the use of steroids by athletes may lead non-athletes to risk their health as well. But the fact is that, with time, the use of drugs like steroids will not disappear from our culture. It will, in fact, grow, eventually becoming so common that it might almost be said to be ubiquitous. Everybody wants to stay young. As we move forward in time, more and more people are going to use more and more drugs in an effort to stay young. Many of these drugs are going to be steroids or the descendants of steroids.

If we look into the future, then, we can reliably foresee a time in which everybody is going to be using steroids or their pharmaceutical descendants. We will learn to control the health risks of these drugs, or we will develop alternatives to them. Once that happens, people will start living to age 200 or 300 or 1,000, and doctors will begin routinely prescribing drugs to help you live to be 200 or 300 or 1,000. If you look into the future 40 or 50 years, I think it is quite likely that every citizen will routinely take anti-aging pills every day.

How, then, are those people of the future — who are taking steroids every day — going to look back on baseball players who used steroids? They’re going to look back on them as pioneers. They’re going to look back at it and say “So what?”

Labels: drugs, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 11:20 AM link  //  0 comments

Thanks to SOSG for passing along the SI slide show about what happened to Michael Vick's pit bulls.

Labels: offtopic, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 2:01 PM link  //  0 comments

MLB.com recap

Labels: braves, phillies, recaps, woo hoo

// posted by Rob @ 7:40 PM link  //  0 comments