Pablo

....next inning....

It would appear.

Based on, what? As far as I can tell, kid is immune to pressure. Comes to the states and sucks air in Spring training because.... well apparently, because he doesn't care what anybody else thinks - he KNOWS who he is and what he can do. REALLY curious about your reasoning

Hard for me to believe the Humidor has that big of an effect, but.... I dunno. AJ Pollock went down, and he was providing a decent bat before then. But what the heck happened to Goldschmidt?

Oh, I agree, I think pitcher execution has far more to do with it. For clarification, though, I'm not saying Maldonado doesn't call the pitches; my point is that if he CHRONICALLY calls bad pitches, Scioscia would not keep him employed on his team. That leads me to look elsewhere for the cause, and I think you put your finger on it.

Catcher defense is so hard to quantify. Fangraphs podcast "Effectively Wild" recently studied the affect of effective pitch-framing on staff ERA, particularly (in this case) as it pertained to the Cubs with a 'location dependent' pitching staff and a sub-par framing catcher (Wilson Contreras). They were hoping to bring a correlation to why the Cubs staff has been struggling. Their research, however, showed the pitch-framing/pitching success link was (surprisingly) non-existent. So how do you quantify catcher defense? I have heard some rail on Maldonado's failure to 'call good pitches" this year, but after watching Scioscia micro-manage his catchers for nearly 20 years, I gotta say that's a bunch'o'crap. IF Maldonado were calling the pitches, and IF he were doing a poor job, he would not be catching for a Mike Scioscia managed team. Blocking the plate used to be a good metric, until it was no longer allowed. So for me, the casual fan who has watched Angel catchers throw out 10% of opposing runners for 15 years, I am so over-the-top excited that we FINALLY have someone who can actually gun down a would-be base stealer, that this whole "Maldy is a bad defensive catcher" nonsense is just noise.

Got a whole little 'thang' going on with himself out there.

"Struck him out twice" Nice!

Could his scraped up hands have made it hard to swing the bat, so he took a walk? Coincidence??

Man, hope that doesn't hurt his batting any

Oh, jeez Marte

I would point to the home plate ump. Decide what is a strike and what isn't, and call it all night. If it's not exactly what the 'box' says, that's fine; mlb hitters will adjust. Just keep it consistent.

Thank you Bregman for the DP on ball four

Dropped below the Padres and into last in NL West. 'plop'

Oh no; JusrATroutFan saw it coming; don't you remember when he posted it just before? Or, maybe he was just thinking it.

Fundamental Baseball. Game comprehension. After spending a few weeks on this board, I have lost absolutely all respect for those arm-chair managers who blame the front office or manager for every failing the players have. The sheer chutzpah of trying to claim, with a straight face, that you saw this or that coming, and insisting that anyone with any baseball understanding can see it coming, when all they can actually see is what happened. "Why did you take Barria out after only 94 pitches" can simply be restated as "Why would you leave Barria in when he's already thrown more pitches than any time in his career?". Just as "Gotta stick with Alvarez here because he's the only rested, reliable arm" gets substituted with "how can you leave him in to blow the lead" - all depending on the outcomes. And then, THEN, "supporting" their assinine conclusions (based on things that have already happened) by claiming that nobody else understands fundamental baseball. I'm frustrated. ANOTHER tough loss as the Angels try desperately to hold on with a bullpen devastated by injury. But at least we can count on the 'knowledgeable' baseball fans to tell us what should have happened, based solely on what actually did. Cowards.

Uhhh... you know that right now they're chasing us, right?

With a .409 OBP over those 6 games.

You mean, the guy that got two outs after Alvarez blew the lead?

I agree.

I dunno - rather than a black eye for baseball, I think it makes them look good that even their stars are not above the rules. I don't think most major sports could pass that criteria.

Well, gosh, here's your gold star.

The medical ailment being his PED's show up in drug tests.

But is he Clutch?

I'm just trying to remember who wanted Valbuena to bunt. The only 'bunting' talk I've read on the board recently was w/respect to Calhound & the shift. Overplayed the joke; my bad