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In the spirit of Spirit, here is the Official Countdown to 100 Wins Thread:

Here we go!

04/01/13: LAA 3 @ CIN 1 - An Epic Opening Day Battle

1) The offense should be able to score more than 2 runs.

2) Downs should be able to pitch an inning in a close game and not give up a run.

3) I'm not ready to give up on Downs. He pitched a perfect inning on opening day. He hit Choo and, although hit hard, Pujols misplayed a line drive allowing the run to score. Today, Downs gave up a bloop to Gentry and then left a pitch up to Kinsler-if that pitch was a few inches lower it would've been a groundout to Howie. I tend to give guys a longer leash than most (see Jepsen), so take that as you will. Burnett (and probably Maronde) is (are) the lefties of the future, but the guy had a 1.34 ERA in 2011 and a 3.15 ERA last season- its only been 2 games, and a few bad pitches. I think people are overreacting to the "L"s next to his name.

I think that Haren is hurting. It is very unlike him to give up that many runs.  The problem probably stems from last year.

Yeah, I feel bad for the guy. He's one of my favorite pitchers. I loved that he was an Angel (although I wish we still had Skaggs and Corbin) and I think the Angels made a good move letting him go. 

I hope regains his form and continues to be the Dan Haren we are used to (in 2014).

The good thing is Kendrick and Ianetti.

HR's given up leaderboard:

Haren 4 HRs (one start)

Santana 3 HRs (one start)

Blanton 3 HRs (one start)

Morales hitting .071 no homers.

And Blanton was pitching against the Reds in the worlds smallest baseball stadium. 

DiPoto's starting pitching strategy (flyball pitchers with awesome OF defense) should be good over the course of a season, but there will be some away games in HR parks with HR hitters that will kill us. I was impressed that the games were that close, considering our offense and the miscues in the field and on the basepaths. 

The MotO will heat up and this team will be good, but if we can't stop with the sloppiness we won't be winning the division.

I'm surprised with how well Morse has been hitting so far. He is really starting out hot.

Put tape over "Texas" and write "Angels"

( R)ANGE[L]S

That sucks for him. First, he doesn't make the MLB roster, then this. I hope he rebounds and has an awesome rest of the season between AAA and MLB.

dumb. the angels had a pretty weak schedule at the beginning of last year. plus, the rangers have to travel more for interdivisional games

Last year is last year. Didn't the Rangers have an off day yesterday? Must be nice to have an off day between two interdivisional games.

Not concerned about the offense in the grand scheme of things, but seriously, wake the f*ck up NOW.

Me neither.

But, they have to hit over .250 while they are cold. At least Pujols walks when he doesn't hit. Hamilton swinging at that outside breaking ball, while not unexpected, is already starting to annoy me. Good job with the BB by Trumbo today, but he needs to have better ABs.

Yeah, it was a good start by Jason. Great job of getting out of jams. 

He probably could've gone deeper in the game, too. Only 93 pitches.

The Angels have a tough schedule in April, the toughest in the majors.

Playing the Reds in Ohio is probably the Angels' worst nightmare. Great pitching and a HR-hitting offense- with our starters heavy fly-ball tendencies and a bandbox stadium. We probably could've won all 3 games if:  1) there were fewer miscues in the field and on the bases, 2) there were fewer K's,  3) the MotO hit at least .250.

I don't think its that bad, yet. We won't have a great record by the end of the month. But, if we can stay above .500 by the time May rolls around we should be in good shape.

We do need to start winning games, though.

Kendrick 2-4, SB and Trumbo's BB

I think the sign was funny.

Look, everybody dies. I don't think Irwin's death was a tragedy. He was doing what he loved to do, what he did his entire life. He risked his life everyday, working with dangerous animals. I would think it be unusual if Irwin died quietly in his sleep one night, rather than by a dangerous animal. The Adenhardt incident was a tragedy. A promising young pitcher on the cusp of his career, killed by a drunk driver. I know the comment was meant as an example, but it wasn't that funny.

I did laugh at the "Mr. Generous" comment, though, so take that how you will.

Saw this on deadspin. Once again, the comments do not disappoint

 

"I saw a similar sign at a recent Chicago game:

Cubs To Do List

1. Timothy Treadwell

2. World Series"

Link!

Luhnow Leads Scouting Directors With 21 Opening Day Players

Colby Rasmus, Jaime Garcia, Mitchell Boggs, Adam Ottavino, Allen Craig, Chris Perez, Jon Jay, Luke Gregerson, Shane Robinson, Clayton Mortensen, Daniel Descalso, Pete Kozma, Tony Cruz, Brett Wallace, Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, Matt Adams, Matt Carpenter, Ryan Jackson, Shelby Miller and Trevor Rosenthal.

Luhnow was scouting director for the Cardinals from 2005-11, and was responsible for drafting many of the players on the team’s 2011 World Series team. He is now the general manager for the Astros....

...Luhnow had never worked a single day in baseball. Nor had he played above the high-school level. And let's just say that not every member of the Cardinals' front office welcomed Luhnow with open arms.

Now he's the guy who has been charged with turning around a franchise that has been the worst in baseball for the past two seasons, a team that lost 106 games in 2011 and 107 in '12."

Read the Article: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130228&content_id=42084410&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

"Among the teams with the 10 worst March/April records last season, only two (A’s, Los Angeles Angels) finished the season above .500....

...Texas Rangers. Don’t be surprised if they finish with the majors’ best March/April record again this season. The Rangers are the only team that won’t face a single 2012 playoff team in the early going, and 10 of their match-ups are against the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins."

http://aol.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2013-03-30/opening-day-angels-mike-trout-nationals-rays-red-sox-giants-mets-phillies

His face looks like Robin Williams' knuckles.

Matisyahu dyed his hair blonde.

but he sure knows how to manage an NL-style game:

• • Offensive Substitution: Pinch-runner Andrew Romine replaces Albert Pujols.
  • Bottom 11
• • Defensive switch from center field to left field for Mike Trout.
  • Andrew Romine remains in the game as the third baseman.
  • Defensive switch from left field to first base for Mark Trumbo.
  • Pitching Change: Mark Lowe replaces Scott Downs, batting 7th, replacing third baseman Alberto Callaspo.
  • Defensive Substitution: Peter Bourjos replaces pitcher Scott Downs, batting 9th, playing center field.

Richards and Lowe (and Jepsen), especially, did an awesome job.

They really worked around the miscues by the defense, too.

Our bench is pretty thin...hope the big boys can power through the next couple games so our BP gets some rest.

Yep.

Good thing tomorrow is an off day. I thought it was weird when I looked at the schedule before the season started, but it worked out pretty well.

I still don't understand Harris over Lucho.

He has more experience and plays more positions. Lucho could probably use more time to develop.

I don't understand Richards. Sure he could be a good BP arm, but keep him stretched out in AAA as starter. 

I'm glad Lowe made the roster, that was a good pickup.

Please Angels never do one of these.

Don't worry, they will.

In about 3 years.

Yeah, but that includes everybody; Cordero, Single-A guys, everybody. Its pretty well known we don't have much depth in the farm system right now. 

I'll wait until the season starts to start worrying about the pitching.

I think the SPs will be better than expected.  A few blowups here and there will inflate their ERA so on paper it won't look great, but I think by and large, they will do their job and keep us in games.  The offense will do it's thing so the big determining factor will be the pen.  three guys need to be very good and two more at least solid.  Frieri, Jepsen and Downs or Burnett are so important.  Then one of Burnett/Downs and Lowe/Richards need to be good enough not to turn small deficits into big ones.  If they can do this, the team will win 92-97 games as expected.  If the pen fails, 85 wins.  Yes, I am saying that there is  10 win delta between a very good pen and what they did last year. 

 

On top of that, even if the starting pitching doesn't perform all that well, as long as the pen does well, they will still win a lot of games.  A average pen last year and we win the division.  I am confident that the offense will be just as good and the starters might be better as last year's crew wasn't great. 

Yeah, I really think the bullpen is more important than most people realize. A major part of the Angels' success during the 2000s was due to the awesomeness of their BP. I might be wrong, but for the first time in a long time I really like the Angels' BP. 

I guess I'm in the minority, but I really think the bullpen is a strength of this team. There isn't a lot of depth, but the guys we have should be lights out.

Aardsma would be an interesting pickup. 

I wouldn't mind picking up Lars Anderson and Travis Blackley either.