CAAngelsLifer

O.co is so sunny... tough day for fly balls..

I'm guessing the A's don't sell tickets to the top deck? I'm not super familiar with seating arrangements for baseball games played at NFL stadiums.

I thought Green was going to be a trade deadline casualty for pitching. but either they didn't want to get rid of him, as desperate as we were for pitchers, or they tried and couldn't get anyone worth it. Howie and Aybar- that's risky... they are fairly important team chemistry components I think.

Because once our budget goes over that threshold, Arte has to start paying into the luxury tax. basically you start paying an additional % of your payroll to the league as a penalty for spending more money than the poor teams can afford. The percentage goes up and up depending on how far above the threshold you go. It's hard to explain, here's an old link. http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2013/9/11/4719062/mlb-yankees-dodgers-luxury-tax-2013-penalty but Arte may not care. we'll found out fairly soon.

Speaking of Vernon Wells, dude took a lot of teams to the cleaners: "When the contract ends after the 2014 season, Wells will have received ~$45 million from the Blue Jays, $67.1 million from the Angels, and $13.9 million from the Yankees since 2008. During that time, Wells hit .255 (.302 OBP), averaged 19 home runs and eight stolen bases per season, and was named to one All-Star team (2010)." -Business Insider in 2014 we paid him what, $18.5M? That's a nightmare.

who do you think that is? Someone like McCarthy or someone a little fancier?

Can't ignore the human emotional impact on the players. Not saying it completely supports the idea that the Cespedes trade sunk the offense but here are some quotes taken from various articles since the deadline: “My mind is blown,” said A’s outfielder Josh Reddick. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would give up Cespy.” “Cespedes has been a cornerstone of the organization for three years,” shortstop Jed Lowrie said. “So this is a surprise." “Yoenis was part of the fabric of the team,” Beane said, noting that Gomes has been, too, and he also has terrific leadership qualities. “Losing a guy like that is lessened a little bit when you bring back a guy like Jonny.” "It was a shock,'' Donaldson says. "We looked at Cespedes as one of the untouchable guys. And when it happened, we're kind of like, 'This is interesting.' It took a while to get a grasp on it. We knew there was nothing we could do about it. We had to man up.'' It should be noted that Lowrie and Reddick qualified their quotes with praise for the acquisition of Jon Lester.

One of those things that social media people are freaking about in twitter feeds and comment sections. The only real concern was if he might be contagious- that's why he wasn't at the park last night. He'll be fine. Scioscia said he might push his Friday start if he needs an extra day.

I find it interesting that the general understanding is that Arte Moreno is dead set against going over the luxury tax when I think he said in February that he would do it if it meant "putting his team over the top". The MLB rumor mill always seems to add as the postscript to any potential Angels deal "but Moreno will be reluctant to go over the luxury tax in the offseason..." He's had some kind of embarrassing busts in recent high end FA signings so I would be really surprised if they aren't at least a little more cautious this time around. Do we have any medium level big leaguers who would be realistic trade bait for young pitchers like Skaggs/Santiago last season? Just looking for opinions. Conger/Cowgill/Green types... although conger would bring up catching depth issues.

Or if his body is physically capable of hurling a small object precisely 90-100 times at about 90 mph for an hour and a half straight. God I wish they had pulled him just one inning earlier... That's why i'm glad Scioscia hasn't been pushing it with Rasmus and has Weaver on a shorter leash than usual.

Is it too early to talk about this? It comes up in pretty much every other thread so I figured I'd just make an official one in case anyone else doesn't have to work today. Who do you think we can get for $9.5M in the starting pitching category? Hint: it's not Scherzer and it's not Lester so let's not waste our time. Plus, you gotta figure they'll need to replace Grilli & Thatcher as well in the BP. Pretty much everyone was up or traded this year so they've gotta find someone unless Jerry has a couple more Matt Shoemakers stashed in the farm somewhere. Is there a Sams Club for pitchers?

Sucks. I'm in the same spot because MLBtv quits when the postseason starts. When i bought it there was an option for postseason games for an extra charge but apparently i was really stupid to think it would be available to add on later should my Angels make the postseason. MLB should have a PPV option on their app for postseason games. They'd make money off of me for sure.

This is going to be an odd comment- but seeing as how the Angels clinched the division early and only need wins for ALCS HFA, is it weird that I wish we were playing better teams in the last couple weeks? It's nice that LeBlanc is pitching shutouts against our division foes but let's face it- they have TERRIBLE offenses so are we really seeing what kind of performance we'd see him have against, say, the Orioles/Tigers/Royals? I mean- Bedrosian shut down the A's for 2 innings... what does that say about their hitters? Honestly the Astros and Rangers are both hotter than the M's and A's which is why i was encouraged by Weaver's performance. Although now he has the flu. they should never have allowed our starters to even enter that disease ridden O.co

Imagine Bob Melvin with the Rays pitching staff. those games would take 7 hours.

just one. damn. and I'm already married so we couldn't be sister wives. this is starting to get confusing.

oohhhh... so Joe Smith did that on purpose. I knew it. He's the best. I want him to marry my sister.

Joe Smith NEVER looks good at the Colosseum. it's like his kryptonite... remember last time? Tonight he looks like he caught what CJ has. (i had this typed when he first took the mound but didn't want to submit til he was through the inning safely)

my theory is also that we can't win the ALDS without Shoe. it's iffy enough WITH him unless our offense fires back up. Also, imagine how SCREWED we would be if we had to play in the wild card game. So... winning the division turned out to be miracle #1 in September.

This seemed like the perfect time to make a completely unrelated, irrelevant "Mark Teixeira on the DL because his tampon got stuck" joke.

Let's face it, a "great start" for LeBlanc tonight would be going 6 innings and giving up less than 3 runs. An amazing start would be 7 innings and giving up 2. Against Sonny Grey, I think our hitters have a better chance than last night. The only way to beat Oakland when Shark or Lester are pitching is to get lucky with their bad defense, depend on the long ball, or to get to their bullpen. Tonight depends on Oakland's offense as much as Wade's pitching. They didn't get a hit off of Bedrosian in 2 innings. BEDROSIAN! The guy who gets chased out of every game by last place teams in less than 2/3 of an inning while giving up 3-5 runs. The Mariners aren't a good team to judge pitching off of because they either hit great or don't hit at all- they don't do mediocre offense. So maybe CJ and Wade got the bad version and we just couldn't tell so they looked great. As for the postseason? Leblanc doesn't have great stuff but then again none of the AL playoff teams are hitting very well and all you have to do as a pitcher is to have a better night than the other guy's bats. if he bombs tonight, i think Scioscia has to leave him in and let him take the pummeling. if the A's knock him out of the park we'll know he won't be starting in October. My money would be on Rasmus any day over Leblanc.

i can't even look at him right now

Yeah... these were the same fans who all jumped ship 3 weeks ago. they're back now...

YAY!!! Something good happened! Let's mount a comeback. Peyton style. right here, right now.

well, miracles can happen. they can. and getting past the ALDS will be a miracle if it happens. I will not give up yet.

We may have singlehandedly just given Oakland their groove back. FFFFFFUUUUUUUUU********* YOU CJ. This is the worst.