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Welcome to Gary Goodman's
Baseball Page |
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| GRIPES |
Players
Well the season is almost to the mid point and the Angels are in
first place despite some major problems.
Jeff DaVanon – Super sub and spot starter the last couple of years. Jeff’s performance this
year has been pretty poor, batting only .225. Mike has given him more playing time than I would
have.
Rob Quinlan – he’s back in the minors, enough said.
Steve Finley – OK why does it take him almost 3 months to tell people he’s hurt and needs a
cortisone shot? What is with our trainers?
Scott Shields – Over using Shields, he may have a rubber arm and doesn’t get hurt,
but that doesn’t mean he is effective when he’s tired. Also I don’t agree with this 7th inning
Donnelly, 8th inning Shields and 9th K-Rod. If the starter is pitching well as Byrd did Monday, let him
pitch at least until there is a save situation or he has exceeded his pitch count. |
Pine Tar –
Give me a break!
You have never been allowed to have a foreign substance on any
part of your uniform or glove if you are a pitcher. Why would Scioscia confront Frank Robinson
and cause the benches to clear over this?
It was stupid. And I believe it really upset some of the ex-Montreal
players, like Cabrera, who then had a critical error that lead to two runs. The Angels
were winning the game, Santana was pitching well and it again goes back to my early comment on
bringing in Donnelly too soon.
Frank Robinson one upped Scioscia.
The Angels lost that game.
And the next game, with the bases loaded in the ninth, down one run, and no one out. Now we will be
with out a player for at least 8 games.
All this because of a little Pine Tar.
DH –
We don’t have one. The Angel’s have the worst production at that position in the league.
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Announcers
(as usual) – If Arti wants more money for TV - he had better upgrade Steve and Rex. They are really bad.
Steve just keeps spewing out useless statistics and information that no one cares about and ignores the game. He makes at least two major errors per game and since Rex got caught with Pot, he sounds like he a recording. Rex no longer provides good insight, just obvious information that he has regurgitated over and over for the past few years.
I listen to Vin Sculley when the Angels played the Dodgers and he is so good. Maybe it is his timing, but when he talks about a players back ground or offers some factoid, it just seems to work at that moment and adds to the game. Steve is just out of sink his information takes away from the game and thinks he is showing off his knowledge, but it just makes him sound like a babbling idiot.
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Concerns:
Cabrera – While his defense has been great he is only hitting .249
and he now has a sore elbow. Izturis is back and can fill in, but I would like to see Cabrera
and Kennedy really mesh, along with Erstad, they will have the best double play combination
in the majors.
Offense – It’s been good the last few games, but we still leave
to many men on base as a rule.
Base running – I like them to be aggressive, but not stupid. The
Angels have run themselves out of way to many innings. Against Texas Monday Figgins got thrown
out at 2nd base with one out, Kennedy on Third and Vlad at the plate. Vlad then hit a long fly
ball that would have scored an important run; instead it was just the 3rd out.
Now we need to beat Texas again and sweep the LA Dodgers of
Chavez Ravine this weekend.
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| GOOD THINGS |
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First Place –
3.5 games ahead of Texas, need to increase the gap but it’s good.
12 Games over .500 -
we need to be at least 20 games over at the end of the season.
Vlad Guerrero -
.338, 11 homers, 37 RBI’s (no more head first slides please!)
Erstad –
Great Defense and hitting .301.
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Kennedy –
Great Defense and hitting .336, (no long trying to hit everything out of the park).
McPherson –
finally starting to be productive: .242 with 6 HR and 20 RBI’s. He still needs to be more consistent
and cut down on strike outs; he was maybe one game from being sent down.
Starting Pitching –
The entire starting rotation is under 4.00, except Santana who is just up from the minors.
Bull Pen –
The Pen has been great all year when the team wasn’t scoring runs. I think my earlier comments explain why
they have struggled a little lately.
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