Duren, Duren

Bobby Shantz. 5'6", 139 pounds. That's why all references to him were about "little Bobby Shantz " 
But looking at the record books, he was quite an effective left handed pitcher. 16 years MLB career, 1949-1964. 1952 A.L. MVP. Went 24-7 with a 2.48 ERA on the Philly A's. Later on he was a useful reliever on some pennant winning Yankee teams. 
From what I've read in old magazines and seen in a few videos clips he relied on slow breaking stuff and was best against left handed hitters.
Good luck finding many pitchers today who can play 16 years. Of course the financial incentives was important in the old days while many  current pitchers can retire comfortably in half a dozen years or so. 
 

Not a good omen when MLB Extra Innings switched to the Twins broadcast after the Angels feed began without any sound. Those guys began gloating when the ball/strike mistakes went their way. And it got progressively worse as you'd expect. 
Obviously the signs of a blowout came in the first inning and the Soriano/Suarez combo began the fireworks. But as usual, Angel defense added fuel to the fire when the score was relatively close. And the Adell and Rengifo plays were just plain bush league bad. 
Again as is the new normal, Trout did nothing when he had a chance to turn the game around. From there, just a pretty sad exhibition. Against a fairly average team. 
Not much more need to be said except that the team is a mess. For the record, another series lost. Home or away doesn't matter

rengifo not tracking the ball cost us 3 runs

The worst part is that the offense is keeping this game close but Wash essentially conceded the game in the 2nd inning with Suarez

washington putting in suarez was putting up the white flag...how did he think that was a way to win the game playing suarez?

Perry must be fuming that even after banishing Adell to AAA 3 seasons in a row he's back and outshining the Shanuel-Neto-O'Hoppe-Moniak "young core".

Or go to the Coors Light patio and watch Stanley Cup playoff hockey.

"We'll give you this one in a game you're gonna lose by 10 runs anyway. You're welcome."

With all the playoff hockey I've been PVRing the Angels games to watch later. After four hockey games yesterday the Angels game seemed to be a slow motion comedy of errors. Despite a couple of nice double plays the defense continues to create daily damage. 
As Casey Stengel said, " can't anybody here play this game?" 
And is Trout turning into a Dave Kingman? Massive home runs but poor stats and production otherwise. Trout has better speed and defense than Kingman, but purely as a hitter his regression is troubling in most clutch situations. It now seems habitual rather than an a minor deviation. 

Yes. Absolute recency bias. Clearly not enough due diligence. 
Arguably, he may be or become the absolute worst free agent signing in franchise history in terms of  production per dollars spent. At least till now. And it's really hard to envision him being any different if he is on the team for his entire contract. His body is too fragile now and his mindset is questionable. 
At least Pujols gave some decent  production over the span of his contract though it deteriorated dramatically in the later years. 

Bobby Shantz. 5'6", 139 pounds. That's why all references to him were about "little Bobby Shantz " 
But looking at the record books, he was quite an effective left handed pitcher. 16 years MLB career, 1949-1964. 1952 A.L. MVP. Went 24-7 with a 2.48 ERA on the Philly A's. Later on he was a useful reliever on some pennant winning Yankee teams. 
From what I've read in old magazines and seen in a few videos clips he relied on slow breaking stuff and was best against left handed hitters.
Good luck finding many pitchers today who can play 16 years. Of course the financial incentives was important in the old days while many  current pitchers can retire comfortably in half a dozen years or so. 
 

I you want to blame Perry, there’s plenty of things to blame him for.
Blaming him for not trading a generational player when ownership prevented it is not one of those things.

Baseball pitchers are the new football players.  Pitchers know that throwing max effort every single pitch is going to blow out their arms/elbows/shoulders, much like football players know that playing football is going to cost them later in life.  GMs only want pitchers that throw 95+ with a 88+ slider.  Velocity is the name of the game.  Back then pitchers would conserve their stuff and not throw max effort every single pitch due to it being a long season and the expectation of going the full game.  Pitchers were taught to "pitch" and not "throw," meaning mixing up pitches, changing speeds, changing arm slots, hitting your spots.  All of that is out the window now with the max velo approach.  I really miss the days that the starters throws 120+ pitches and goes more than 6 innings. 

Both are correct. 
Wash should have used someone else. But Suarez was expected to simply not give up 4 runs.
That said, if the score is still 2-0, the Angels don't score 5 runs, at least not in the manner they did. Being up 6 runs, Baltimore is going to have an entirely different approach than if they're only up 2 runs. Trout probably gets pitched differently. Ward the same. 
I'm not excusing the decision to bring in Suarez. I'm just saying it's easy to say the exact scenario would have played out on offense when there's no way you could possibly know that.

Gotta protect the established system and the people in it and with vested interests. At all costs. Politics by any other name.
Look at the Reggie Bush stupidity. I don't even want to go deep into that 'protect the establishment' scenario. And irony of ironies. When the system breaks down because of it's own internal hypocrisies they revise history a couple of decades later. After all the damage and humiliation. It wasn't just an ethical decision, but one to avoid even more derision. 
Baseball protecting the umps has been common forever. But with technologies available now for proof checking  they've crossed the line from judgment fallibility to pure reflex systemic protection. 
 

4 runs on 3 homers. Not the greatest value per homer.
It would be nice to actually see runs scored in other ways than the long ball. And it would add some excitement too. 

Why would they be anti-Halos? We haven't been relevant in a decade. 
The umpires on the field sometimes make bad calls and the replay umpires in New York then do everything they possibly can to uphold the bad call. 
It's a shitty system. There is no conspiracy. 

Washington lost this game, not the umpires. There is zero reason to use Suarez in a 2 run game with a day off tomorrow.

Oh well. No big Suarez surprise. Batting practice for Baltimore . Another series on the verge of being lost. 

And now the bullpen circus begins ...
Against a weaker team maybe Anderson was good enough to be in position for a win but the O's are so deep and patient. 
But with lethargic bats hard to beat anyone. 

Anderson not sharp but hanging in. 
Sano getting more impressive in the field than at bat. 
Bats seem cold again. 

Anderson not sharp but hanging in. 
Sano getting more impressive in the field than at bat. 
Bats seem cold again. 

Nice game against a good team. Canning making steady progress. Garcia effective in his inning plus. Surprising power  production from 6 - 9. Hope it's a sign of more hitting depth coming around. 
First Rendon. Now Trout. Talk about non traditional leadoff hitters. Hardly the Fletcher  model or the typical prototypes. I don't see this lasting long, but more a wakeup call to break the slump. A bit of desperation maybe, but why not? At least short term. But what happens when Rendon returns?
Adell needs to start consecutive games for a couple of weeks at least. I think that more everyday play will sharpen his read on pitchers and help his steal percentage. It's about more than speed. Getting a good jump is mostly about timing the  pitching delivery and knowing their pickoff moves for an optimum lead. He's still raw with that. 
A win tomorrow could start some positive momentum. 
 

Adrianza is a good call as a late-inning defensive replacement, but in that type of situation in the 9th inning, two on base with no outs, he needs to be pinch hit for. Thaiss or Drury have had plenty of at-bats this season; Adrianza has not. The biggest disappointment is Trout again not coming through when it counts the most. People keep harping about how we should trade him for a cache of young, blue-chip talent from a playoff-caliber team. Sorry to spill the beans, but none of those teams are going to give up any young talent for him -- Oh, they would take Mike Trout in a heartbeat, who wouldn't -- but not for the return that the Angels would need. That ship sailed at least four years ago. The reality is, at this point in his career, he is still a very good player, but he is no longer a franchise-type player. Playoff-caliber teams typically don't make big trades during the season for players like Mike Trout. They already have talented players, and they don't want to give up the talent that it would take to land him, not to mention taking over that huge salary. Look, like many people, I would love to see Trout and the Angels go to the World Series before his career ends. I sincerely hope that happens.  But Arte and company decided to let our best player walk on over to the next county northwest of us and sign with the Dodgers, and now we are screwed for the near future as we got nothing in return but a "What could've been."

I'm mildly disappointed at how Washington is handling things. But we don't know what expectations Perry/Arte had in hiring him. Presiding over a rebuild or hoping that new leadership in the dugout would somehow create better chemistry and get the team in sync. 
So far it seems obvious that there is no magic. The roster is just too problematic. But a rebuild mindset doesn't seem to be in effect either. 
Still, it's really early in the season. This homestand will be a chance to reset somewhat. 
If July last year was a key turning point then indirectly it goes back to prioritizing pleasing/impressing  Ohtani to re-sign more than anything else. Grabbing a handful of discards and declining players hoping that somehow everything would fall into place. And giving up potential future assets. As if Ohtani hadn't likely already made up his mind to leave. 
That entire scenario was embarrassing. Everyone knew the odds were slim at best. Yet Perry (likely at Arte's direction) presided over a situation that will go down in franchise history as one of their biggest blunders.