Inside Pitch

You'd think being such a lazy ass who doesn't care and is happy to just collect a paycheck he wouldn't have been busting his ass up the baseline in the first inning.

Are people here doing that? I would expect it on twitter and the sort, but I'd assume most here are just frustrated he's hurt again, by the sounds of it he is too. I spent most of the offseason arguing if he was healthy he was still capable, so I'm sure some think me a Rendon fanboy, but I just about thew up my arms when I heard he had pulled up running to first. It sucks.

It would have been better to not hear him habla ingles.

Just watched a replay and it doesn't look like a bad one but he's a slow healer anyway. Hopefully you're right and they are just being overly cautious. All my whining about adding a SS in case of Neto struggles or a Rendon injury forcing Rengifo to third materializes waaaay too soon.

You AJ'd him. I helped.

It's so frustrating... He's just made of glass. It's Rendon so, it could be forever before he comes back but have they said how bad of a hammy pull yet or are they not habla-ing ingles? Wish Sano was even a BAD defender at 3B because even when he's not getting hits at least he gets on base.

Walsh went .188/291/.208-.499 (15 games) since that 3-5 game, his first of the season. This despite a healthy .321 BaBip.

It's early, but in Bellinger's case -- there was a lot of noise screaming fluke. It's funny because all the predictive stuff he was awful at last year he's improved on this season. Still below average but better than last year, alas the BaBip gods giveth and taketh away the hits.

The other guy people were clamoring to sign isn't doing much better. Bellinger is sporting a 216/.306//378 batting line.

Even less so considering his FIP is under 3.00.

I too wear a condom when in the game threads

Somewhere @ettin is smiling.

We are in the same boat, I have no clue if it's because of what he's been asked to do or a byproduct of what he's trying to do as a leadoff hitter. Clearly the team likes the outcome so far or they would have made a change. Baseless opinion time ... I do wonder if he's being a lot less aggressing in his first at bat and simply trying to give himself and everyone behind him a chance to see as much of the SP as possible. I also believe that if he were hitting lower in the order we may see a greater effort to swing, and swing hard. Those first few games I thought he looked extremely passive, like he was adjusting and failing. Glad to see he's improved as the year has gone on. Let's hope he can stay healthy.

I hope they play him enough that he learns and stops making rookie mistakes. Seriously. Hicks should be an afterthought.

I can't imagine how upset you must be with the rest of the team then.

He's been over 100 with every batted ball put into play today. People are going to start asking what's wrong with him then he's going to get lucky with a bunch of soft hit BS and they will say he's back.

These assholes are asshats. They even have an A on the cap. It's science.

Based on how this game has gone if he does it will be a bleeder just over the corner IFers glove that rolls away from people. Then his next at bat he will torque a ball 108 MPH and make an out because, Angels...

And yet he's 28.% of the Angels' total of baserunners and driven in 100% of their runs.

These asshats have done well enough to be trying to get their 5th straight win but instead we are here because they are asshats.

The day he scored from first I was waiting for the hamstring tightness report after the game.

So, it's YOUR fault!

Dude.. he's blowing the BABIP gods right now... It's hilarious. I dont think anyone can fault you or anyone for being frustrated with the guy. In my case it would be less frustrating if he was looking like he's washed up.. But given his history, you almost cant ever fully buy in and appreciate what he's doing because the fear of an another injury is always there.

I actually think hitting him leadoff isn't working. I mean, in truth I have no clue if he's trying to emphasis hits over power or if he's still building leg strength up but he's not really trying to load up much --if he was and the power wasn't there I'd be much more concerned his power is legit gone. The other reason I think it's not "been working" his swing data. He's posting near career low Z-swing% meaning he's swinging at fewer strikes than ever while at the same time putting up the best Z-contact of his career (97.1%) -- so he's making contact on 97.1% percent of the strikes he's swinging at. It seems he's being a lot less aggressive than in the past, to his credit he's likely doing what they are asking of him but with a guy like Schanuel around putting mid 80s exit velocities and a great eye ... maybe he should be leading off. I'm mostly watching the exit velocities because that's been steadily on the rise -- so, the hopeful part of me wants to believe it's a guy coming back from leg injuries that's building his strength as he goes along.

Appreciate the effort to back up your opinion with stats, now let's work on actually understanding how to use them. His "career best BaBip" is all of 0.08 above his career average -- sample size matters which is why it was sitting at .000 after his first five games and been stupid high in his last 12 -- the funny thing about "luck" is that it typically balances out over the course of a season. The sample sizes are so insignificant right now that pretty much all the numbers, good or bad are just noise.