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Gamethread PART 2!


Mmm... let's find our way back into this game guys. Yeah? Yeah.

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and yes scott,

yes

17
Is how old the girl was from that Winger song
This has not been good so far
Hold 'em down guys.
O/U on how many beers WTS consumes by the end of the game?
679650909087niner th
Look

This game ain’t over. But we aren’t going to win every game. Tonight the Dodgers are playing better. But its not over until the bottom of the 9th. And even then, sometimes it ain’t over.

regression sucks don't it?
however...

we probably should be watchingthis over this

Chopper = filthy
What's Rich's velocity as per the TV broadcast?
that inning was like 2 minutes LOL
Chopper on the mound.

almonds and cocoanut

Nasty hook! Nice inning outta Thompson
See...

That’s Ashley taking care of her man.

my guess he doesn't strike out tonight
Great job Rich.
Thanks mate.
Nice 1-2-3 Chopper!

Ashley’s gotta be happy bout that

Let's get your asses in gear Angels!
Nifty.

Let’s get something going tonight.

Morales the Marvelous
I'm starting to think that Kowbell is a hitter
ive always considered him a hitter.

he just didnt really get a major chance until this year

I've been saying it all along.

Acuda has way more man love. But I’ve been begging to see Morales since we got him. I know he’s better than the Kotchman.

I guessed last year when they traded Kotch that they had decided that Morales was the better hitter
I think

It was all a very calculated move. Knowing that either they’d keep Tex and audition Morales in Left. Or if they couldn’t re-sign Tex they’d still have a fine bat with Morales at 1st.

this isn't golf
Does that say .188????
no it says

SUCK

How about a random act of clutchness Mathis?
Mathis no longer hitting his weight (198<200)
that is terrible

I don’t care what kind of game you call behind the plate. You should not be starting if you can’t get a hit 1 in 5 times.

Mathis is due

For his monthly hit.

just stand there...
I'm only listening to the game

But sometimes I think Mathis is just content being Napoli’s wingman. He doesn’t want to be the hero. Napoli will toss him the sloppy seconds.

i don't care how good a catcher is defensively

if you hit 200 or worse you should not be playing

agreed

see above

Mathis was bad last year (.593 OPS)

Somehow he has managed to be worse this year (.547 OPS)

unbelievably bad
i think he is weavers personal catcher, but jw is gone so nappy should be in there
figgins bay-bay!
glad that Torre is removing this guy
Way to watch Aybar.
mini buffalo ranch chicken sandwich
A Figgy bloop, a couple of Ultra Slim Fast shakes mixed with Red Bull, and an Abreu blast
i lost you at Abreu blast
the mini sirlon burgers commercial was good

but this mini buffalo ranch chicken sandwich commercial SUCKS!!!

I don't know.

I think it’s great Lincecum has another endorsement deal that kids going to be rich.

No…the one with the mouths on the the guy’s chest sucks!

rather creepy if you ask me
he'd be very popular

in the adult film realm.

RALLY MONKEY
RALLY MARGARITA & RALLY CHIPS & SALSA
I am waving that little monkey as we type

(i’m not really…the beauty of remote fandom)

time to put on the rally cap

smoke ’em if you got ’em.

when it comes to LOB the Angels are the best!!
hell yeah, probably numba one in the league
We're the BEST... AROUUUUUND!

NO ONE’S EVA GONNA TAKE US DOWN!

dude......

is that from the Karate Kid movie?

Feel the

power

Wow that was awesome!

Thank you for that. Brings back warm memories of Elizabeth Shue in that sweater :-)

Damn straight.
Sweep the legs

Do you have a problem with that?

I used to go to Indy Wrestling shows.

Frankie Kazarian would come out to the ring do that music. It was epic. The crowd would start singing along.

Bastardo!

That’s who the Angels should trade for; Phillies pitcher Antonio Bastardo.

Wow. What a name.
He's a starter, but I'd put him in the bullpen.

That way when the screws up, the Game Thread venting will be full of BASTARDO! this and BASTARDO! that

It’s perfect. ;)

when he screws up

My SB Nation wish list; an edit button

late here, but said it last night, saying it again… Rally thread!

this IS supposed to be the rally thread! :-(
i thought this was an exchange of thoughts and ideas amoung angel fans. if this is a rally thread then GO ANGELS!!!
he blocked one!!
Monkey monkey monkey
Nice, Rich

The number 8 is a double halo, meaning this is our inning…

Good job by Rich Thompson.

It will be another two weeks before they let him pitch again.

its a lot easier pitching in a 6-2 game than say a 2-2 game
Alright, here we go. Rallyin' time
Let's Go Halos!
Our guys suck tonight
swing the bat Bobby
We getting jobbed by the ump tonight or is his zone uniformly huge?
We're getting jobbed.
Big time.
thought so. the only way it could be worse is if Tim Tschida was calling it.

I hate that guy. He’s at least on second instead of calling.

thats a lousy excuse though
horrendous zone tonight
Good eye Torii.
Awesome Vlad, just awesome
bad freakin' night
well then...
GIDP for Vladdy. We are regressing to the mean.
Vlad, rally-killing'.
7 game winning streak was fun
im sorry but game over

we arent scoring 4 rus off this bullpen tonight

k.

time to close up the shop guys!

I can't stand it ANYMORE

Vlad should not hit behind Torii. Torii is constantly getting doubled up by Vlad’s weakass infield grounders. He has to be moved down in the lineup.

Bench Vlad will you Sosh?
I'm not sure the bench is appropriate

But he should be hitting 6th after Rivera and K-Mo.

nice Vlad

I appreciate how you don’t want to make the Dodgers exert themselves

I don't know whats sadder

Vlad still hitting behind Torii or that whenever Vlad is at bat a DP or K is almost assured.

why is he hitting 300 then?
Ya know, he HAS two hits in the game guys.

It’s not like he’s single handedly torpedoing us here.

thank you...........

just gonna say that

exactly!!!

stop the hate on Vlad!!

Okay, he's hitting over 300, very true

Then Soth needs to slide him into a lineup position that doesn’t rely on power or scoring RBI’s. I love Vlad too, but he isn’t suited to bat in the 4 spot right now.

Exactly

He is as much of a 4 hitter now as Aybar or Izturis.

Remind me...

what has Rivera done tonight?

Do you really want to compare Vlad's stats to Rivera's?

Rivera has more extra-basehits in a week than Vlad does this season.

Vlad has how many more career Xtra base hits than Rivera?

It’s all a matter of how localized you feel like being. Tonight, Rivera has been the problem, not Vlad.

Career

Is this a joke?

Hey, you're the one who claims K-Rod for Fuentes was a good idea.

And Fuentes doesn’t have career OR season on K-Rod.

ok then say that not that every time he comes up a DP or K is assured
Okay, lets not turn on each other outta frustration

Some of the time Vlad hits a single, sometimes he K’s, and every once in a while there’s an untimely rally killing DP. No better or worse than Abreu, K-Mo, Hunter or anyone else. I was just pointing out that right now, until he gets his stroke back he shouldn’t be in the 4 spot.

This point is obvious

You don’t need to apologize that you are offending people who are living in 2007.

Yeah, how dare we require you to place blame on the people who actually sucked tonight

instead of your chosen scapegoat?

This is not limited to tonight

He has been consistent. 6 extra-basehits in 120 at-bats. That is not a one-game evaluation of a player.

And how many of those ABs have come post-injury?
What is your point?

If he is injured or if he needs to remember how to hit, he can do that at the bottom of the order.

My point is that since coming back from the injury, Vlad is hitting

well over .300 and has had 5 of those 6 extra base hits. He’s getting there. I don’t see how batting him lower in the order affects the outcome tonight, so I don’t understand why you’re complaining.

It isn't about tonight

It is about his performance as a whole. See below. The list of players with higher slugging percentages than Vlad on our roster:

Torii
Rivera
Naps
Morales
Abreu
Figgy
Aybar (yes, Aybar!!!)
Sean Rodriguez

So that makes Vladdy either our worst slugger on nights when we start this lineup.

It's ALL about tonight.

If you want to include the stats from when he was injured, be my guest. I’ll include his career stats. Both have about the same amount of relevance at this moment in time. The question is how well is Vlad hitting RIGHT NOW, not how well was he hitting in April with a torn pectoral.

That is completely illogical

And if you want to compare his June stats, he is our 10th best slugger, following everyone on that list plus Izturis.

If you use his June BA, he's 4th, above everyone save

Izzy, Hunter, and Figgs.

Not in slugging -- he's 10th

Hunter .690
River .683
Napoli .621
Figgy .594
Izturis .588
Abreu .529
Rodriguez .500
Morales .473
Aybar .413
Vlad .407

But in batting average he's 4th.

Fourth best hitter, hit him 4th.

We could keep saying the same things all night in two different threads I suppose.

BA doesn't equal spot in the lineup

There is not a team in all of baseball that has been managed that way in the past 100 years.

Really?

Maybe we should try it. It seems to be working well lately.

I'm sorry to ruin your man-crush

The man can’t hit the ball out of a little league park right now. Everyone can see this but you. The numbers don’t lie. When Erick Aybar is outslugging you for the season and for the month — and when eight other guys are as well — there is a problem.

LOL

i love how u count S Rod in the slugging percentage cagory when he has like 6 Ab’s

Um, so what?

Every other hitter is ahead of Vlad as well.

So what?

Vlad’s ahead of most of them in actually HITTING. Hitting the ball to the outfield doesn’t do much if it doesn’t drop in. With a man on third or second, Vlad’s got a better chance to drive the guy in than most of the people on the team.

I'm sorry to bust your blame-fest

but Vlad wasn’t the problem, and hitting him somewhere else doesn’t win us jack shit tonight.

I'm not blaming Vlad for the loss

I’m saying that he should not be hitting 4th. I don’t think anyone believes that he should be. He is our worst slugger in the lineup right now. Nothing you say can change that — because it is a statistically documented fact.

And he's still one of the best hitters we have.

Nothing you can say will change the fact that he hits fourth, because fortunately for us, Mike Scioscia is smarter than we are, and knows what he’s doing.

I trust in Mike

He is very loyal and patient. We will see how it plays out. The numbers speak for themselves right now though. See you next game.

Until then. ^_^
switch Morales and Vlad in the lineup
He has 6 extra basehits in 120 at-bats

That is pathetic. His slugging percentage is down 200 points from his career average. Everything he hits is on the ground. Sometimes he gets singles, but he also strikes out a ton and hits into way too many rally-ending doubleplays.

Holy crap, you mean being injured hurts your stats? I never would have guessed...

Getting hits is step one, power comes later. And he’s getting hits right now. Vlad is not the biggest problem in this game.

yup.......

7-8-9 guys 0-8……..Juan 0-3 4 LOB……

bigger fish to fry than Vlad

If he isn't healthy

Then he shouldn’t be hitting cleanup until he proves that he is healthy and he can hit the ball out of the infield.

He is healthy (now). The problem is timing. That just takes a while.

Again though, point is, he hasn’t been the problem tonight.

Striking out and hitting into a key doubleplay

are problems. That we had much bigger problems doesn’t change that fact.

And either way — if he isn’t healthy or doesn’t yet have his timing — he should not be our cleanup hitter.

Why? He's gotta play somewhere to get his ABs, and hitting him somewhere else just messes with

people’s rhythms when he gets moved back up in the lineup.

He only gets moved back up in the lineup

if he starts out-performing Rivera and Kendry. It is very likely that won’t happen. Plus, moving Ortiz down in the lineup seems to have helped him.

why is he hitting .207 then???
That's what I was thinking.
Look at his last two weeks

He is starting to hit the ball hard. 4 HRs in his last 13 games. I could pull his numbers if you insist.

That couldn't have anything to do with the fact that he's just gotten 100 more AB's than Vlad right?
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't

But at the moment, Vlad is a groundball hitter. No one is even disputing that. He thus has no basis being a cleanup hitter for any team, let alone a good one. If he turns it around, then we can discuss at that time.

I don't care what kind of hitter you are as long as you GET HITS.

Other people haven’t benn doing that tonight, and are therefore more worthy of yelling about than Vlad.

Right

Matthews apparently has more power.

Yeah, so we should bat matthews fourth.

Have fun with that.

No

We should bat Rivera 4th.

Yeah, he didn't hit into a DP OR leave a billion guys on base tonight.

Hitting him fourth would have made a serious difference in the outcome of this game.

He is destroying Vlad this season

In fact, even Aybar has a higher slugging percentage than Vlad.

Players in our lineup who are out-slugging Vlad:

Torii
Rivera
Napoli
Morales
Abreu
Figgins
Aybar
Sean Rodriguez

So on days when that is our starting 9, Vlad has the WORST slugging percentage of anyone in the lineup.

And yet, since coming back from injury he's hitting better than most of them.

AND he wasn’t the problem tonight.

What is your evidence of that claim?

What is Vlad’s slugging percentage compared to everyone else since coming back from injury? I would like to know.

In fact

What you just said is false. His slugging percentage in June is actually 10th best (rather than 9th) on the team.

I said HITTING.

Vlad’s .339 is fourth for June.

So let him hit down with Aybar then

Not in the 4 spot

Why?

He’s the fourth best hitter, hit him fourth.

Because 4th is where you hit your BEST slugger

Not your worst slugger

he is hittign 206 in his last 10 games

he has 4 homeruns but he has gotten out every other time

he is actually hitting .290 over his last 13 games

with 4 HRs. I would jump for joy if Vlad did that.

i said the last 10 games he is hitting 206 which is true
OK great

What I said is equally true. Vlad’s season slugging % is .375. I repeat: .375. That is totally pathetic.

i dont know where you get your stats but he isnt hitting .290

in the last 13 games. look at this link
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/5909/gamelog

My bad

.282 with 4 HRs

im not gonna complain about Vlad until his

BA goes even close to Ortiz right now im fine with him hitting 300 with out the home runs. its way better than .206 with 5 home runs

The point of discussing Ortiz

Was to note that Boston’s manager dropped Ortiz in the lineup, which made sense because they had players who were outperforming, and in addition to that it seems to have helped him.

i think Vlad will be fine

u just gotta give the power some time.
its not like the DP was a dribbler it was hit hard up the middle. it just happened that orlando hudson was playing up the middle

It happens all the time
how the fuck is he the problem tonight

he has 2 hits. the clowns behind him that are 0-3 are the problem for not driving him in!

giants just GIDP with the walkoff run on first
figured I would add to our happy atmosphere
Sounds like they studied out of Vlad's playbook.
Left ole Chopper in one too many innings.......
Hay guys. We got out of the inning!
nice Raf Rod......

way to work out of it

way to get out of it

time to face broxton

broxton looks like mongo from "blazing saddles"
Broxton only pawn in game of life.
Broxton is a tank
come on guys....4 runs....NO PRESSURE
it can be done
especially with Mathis in the lineup
perhaps juice can do it.
GMJ will strike out on three straight pitches
that's a bold prediction
well i guess i blew that one
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

that was good

You can be forgiven for it though.
can you keep making wrong predictions.

Like that the Angels can’t come back tonight?

okay

Aybar will pop up to the third basemen

but come on who else is totally shocked?
pretty much everyone, I would think.
Baaaaaaaaaaam HR!!
GMJ goes deep

And all you guys can talk about is Vlad???

wtf.............................
**********HOMERUN*******Gary Matthews Jr.!****************
really?

my feed is lagging

Aybar sucks

no surprise

I don't care anymore how good he is in the field

his AB is CRAP

why?

Was Soth just waiting for the post -game spread. Couldn’t we have put S-Rod out there in lieu of Aybar.

well.......the good offense and great pitching cant be perfect every night.....

no biggie…..

Get em tomorrow.

I disagree.

it was a biggie…. we needed this win just for moral if nothing else.

if the teams morale wasnt high enough with 7 wins in row.......

why would the 8th win made a difference?

BOTG goes to Aybar

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