moccasin

This starting rotation tho.

I really dig Trout hitting leadoff. Putting the toughest at the plate the most time is always good. Cole at 96 pitches now.

The starting rotation has been awesome this month. They are really keeping us in games, even when we have been facing tough pitching matchups and the offense being up and down. All 6 pitchers have made 2 starts this month, and each one of them have been good. They are averaging 1.5 earned runs given up per start.

When it comes to the usage of Ohtani, nobody will ever be satisfied. Every single decision made on him has been heavily criticized, because with Ohtani, every way the imagination can come up with seems possible. Although there are many ideas, you can divide those usage plan arguments into two. The pitcher first approach, and the hitter first approach. And I want to stress that currently, he needs to be a pitcher first in order to continue succeeding at being a two-way player. I've said this a few times on this board, even before he came to the Angels, that Ohtani is much more talented as hitter. It comes natural to him; some pitchers are good at hitting, but pitchers don't drive the ball the other way, and hit opposite field bombs like him. Also, even the best hitters struggle to adapt to different leagues. The jump from AAA to the bigs is a huge change that requires an adjustment period, a lot of hitters struggle just changing from the NL to the AL. If you acknowledge that he he is switching countries, with different strike zones and equipment, you would understand that his talent hitting the ball is just unreal and mind boggling. But pitching is a lot more challenging for him. As far as I know, in Japan, he spent most of his practice time throwing the ball, not hitting it. Yes, he throws hard, and that comes naturally for him. But everything else requires work. He needs to check and work on his mechanics and release points all the time, because command is not his strength. His fastball was said to be relatively straight, so he is still trying to improve that. He also needs to polish his breaking ball, and take extensive time scouting hitters, as well. So this is why he needs to be a starter. He needs to know when he's pitching, and he needs extensive time to prepare for his starts. I'm not saying the Angels will lose value if they put him in the pen. The added PAs may be worth it. But Ohtani will not want to, because soon his value as a hitter will become vastly larger than as a pitcher, and it will become very easy for the team to make him focus on hitting. Ohtani wants to be a two-way player, and that's why he had all those meetings before signing, and eventually chose the Angels.

Calhoun has got to make Rodney throw strikes there. Unbelievable.

The word is naoma.(なおマ, na-o-ma）There's no perfect translation of the word, it might be closer to "meanwhile, the Mariners" or "by the way, the Mariners". Paxton's 16K game the other day was a perfect example, I'm sure the MLB fan message board in Japan flooded with the word that day.

Ichiro might be the most recognizable person in Japan. He's probably more famous than the prime minister, and may be respected and revered more than any person in Japan. But despite his sky-high status, he couldn't escape the dilemma of being known to be incapable of impacting the outcomes of games, in his own country. Because Japanese people became so used to seeing the news headline "Ichiro has x hits, but the Mariners lose(win)", the abbreviated version of "but the Mariners" in Japanese became slang that could be used in instances where doing something good(or bad) affects the outcome in the opposite way. He was not just a singles hitter, he was an infield hit hitter. Combined with OFs playing in on him, he was unable to drive in runners in from 2nd, and the highest paid player not driving in runs wasn't a good situation. It hurt especially because his team was usually able to pitch well. I'm not blaming Ichiro at all, I'm a huge fan of his. When he had the Edgar Martinezes and Bret Boones hitting after him, he was very effective as a lead-off man. it's just that the Mariners in Ichiro's prime were poorly constructed.

Wow, thanks for the high praise. I'm not here as often as the others, but now I'm glad I posted.

For those of you who don't know, out of high school Ohtani clearly expressed that he wanted to be a pitcher in the bigs. But the Fighters drafted him anyway, and lured him by presenting him the plan to make history as a two-way player. After a while, they found out that he was actually a better hitter than a pitcher. He began to play in the outfield, and the DH was forfeited on days he pitched. There is a legendary story of him hitting lead-off on a game he was pitching. The manager put him at the one-spot and told him "Hit a HR so you don't have to be stuck on the bases and tire yourself before throwing your first pitch". So he swung at the first pitch he saw, drove it into the RF stands, and started trotting around the bases.The manager ended up screaming to him to run slowly around the bases, to keep his breath. Despite his success, the Fighters were criticized very often, and when he got hurt, the commentators piled on him. They finally came up with a solution, to use him as a DH, and on days that he is pitching and the days prior and after he pitches, he rests. He ended up having a legendary year, .322 /.416 / .588 and 22 HRs in 380 ABs, and 10-4 with a 1.86 ERA. The Angels are following the formula the Fighters came up with, and it's working fine so far.

No, he didn't. In his last healthy year, he was used almost exactly the way he is being used now, with the exception of being benched against lefties here with the Angels. He played RF in his earlier days.

I watched Ohtani consistently in Japan, as I am a permanent resident in the country. My favorite team is the Seibu Lions, and Ohtani's Fighters beat us up on a consistent basis. It's interesting that the Fighters always went as he did, when Shohei was healthy, they won the Nihon Series, now that he's gone they're back to being average again.

Yes, our bullpen isn't anything special, but I think we gotta give credit to the M's as well. They grind out PAs now, and their offense isn't the usual cakewalk we have gotten used to seeing for so long. Cano isn't the hit or miss hacker anymore, and Dipoto's trade for Segura and Haniger looks completely genius so far. Also, why were the Angels pitching to Healy anyway? You had a .188 hitter coming up, with the winning run on second, and first base open. People kill Scioscia for his shortcomings often, I'm surprised this one is going unnoticed. To me , it seemed like the Mariners wanted this game more.

Could somebody tell me why MS didn't walk Healy to face the lesser hitter Zunino? I believe first base was open.

Trout, Simmons and Ohtani should hit next to each other 1-3. They are our most consistent hitters by far. Followed by Upton and Pujols, then maybe Valbuena.

This. I never recall of him doing much damage against us with his bat. It was Raul Ibanez that I hated facing on the M's. I remember Ichiro bunting for a hit with runners on 2nd and 3rd and less than 2 outs once. It loaded the bases for a .200 hitter, and of course the M's didn't score. I was like, "thanks Ichiro!"

LOL, Seattle removed Paxton and they give up a game tying HR.

i credit his HR to the person who bumped this thread.

What a dumb pitch to throw on an 0-2 count.

Thought that was gone. Not a good pitch there, but got away with it.

Hey, our SS is pretty good too.

Our infield defense is really good though.

Yeah, Cueto just threw him 2 perfect breaking balls. not much you can do there.

Maldonado, with a short margin over Jose Alvarez. His frame job was excellent as well, gave a struggling Jim Johnson a much needed extra strike against Beltre.

People in Japan love harassing each other for fun, I'm sure he understands it. It just seemed like he was really cold and freezing.

What I don't understand is how they are saying the defense has improved (especially infield), but at the same time thy have the same pitchers from last year giving up more runs. A lot of baseball games will be blowouts and those can be pretty much predicted. A group of talented players will blow other teams away. But many of the close ones are decided by the bullpen, and that's the hardest thing to predict in baseball. You never know who will break out season in middle relief. I remember PECOTA constantly undervaluing the Angels, because we had a consistent bullpen for a long time.