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Scioscia Pulls Joe Saunders for Brian Fuentes Blown Save

This gutless choke of a game does not deserve a writeup. See you tomorrow night at 6 PM. You're still the one that makes me smile, We're still havin' fun and you're still the one, I am boycotting all FSN West advertisers until they stop that stupid commercial. Sorry Jack.

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Poll
Blame of the Game
Fuentes
283 votes
Shields
68 votes

351 votes | Poll has closed

0 recs  |  168 comments

Comments

I hate you Brian Fuentes........

I really do.

Sounds like the start of a

Dr Seuss book. Not sure why, but it does.

"And today the great Fuentes, that Marvelous he, Is the King of the Meatball. That is plain to see."

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

The offense should be an option.
Agree

2nd game in a row where the Angels stranded a bunch of RISP. This time it costs the Angels a much needed win against a very crappy team.

Not just an option: probably the right choice.

Way to take the day off after the Rangers series, guys.

Scioscia deserves blame as well for his sloppy handling of the 9th inning.

Can I put Torii and Naps on the list

for the way the 8th inning ended?

i vote for "WE NEED A RELIABLE ARM IN THE PEN"
I hate Brian Fuentes

a lot

Scott Shields needs to be euthanized tomorrow morning

Piece of shit pitcher

I hate everything about Fuentes
This is why Lackey Left

Scioscia never lets his starters go all the way. The starters KNOW our Bully is crap…and they know if they get pulled, the Bully will blow up.

Lackey hated it, and that’s why he’s gone.
It happened to weaver last week, and it happened to Saundo Friday.

Joakim Soria…that’s how you close games Fuentes. Hope you were watching.

He never lets the starters go all the way? The Angels are 3rd in baseball in CG this season.
tell me you checked that stat?
Lackey left because Boston offered him the most money
Lackey left because he got no run support

for most of his time here.

That, and more money from Boston.

Lackey left because he likes the east coast strike zone.
Lackey left because his wife has his balls & she took them to Boston
Lackey left because he's a dick

And only dicks play in Beantown.

We can't let Shields pitch another game...

…where the Angels aren’t leading by at least three.

I’d say release him, but he’d probably get picked up by the Rangers and have a 25 inning scoreless streak.

I doubt another team would want him

well maybe the Pirates of D-backs, but he won’t have the the mile-long leash that Soth has given him.

If Fuentes does his job there is no Scott Shields
Totally agree. I have come to loathe Fuentes.

I know that he has good stats against lefties, it’s the defense, no run support, yada, yada, yada. The dude is completely unreliable, and inconsistent as hell. Screw Fuentes.

Keep Jepsen

send the rest to outer Mongolia

Texas lost

There’s that.

Ranges lose

no ground lost. none gained

Sad Face

We were 1 strike away from a win

and yet bitchass fuentes throws another damn fastball

0-2 but yet he keeps throwing that weak fastball . SMDH

1 strike away

Gee, that sounded eerily familiar to a game 24 years ago.

Never bring up the ALCS of '86....

That shit is just way too painful brotha!

I blame the guy who invoked Al Michaels "one strike away"

on the game thread.. and no it wasn’t me. If F-bomb got the save, I was gonna go with “Do you believe in miracless”

pardon me ... "one out away"
Techniacalllllly

Some ground lost since there is one less game in which to make up said ground. But everyone knows what you mean.

oh well.....

turn the stupid piece of crap page……….

That’s a game that should have been a W for the Angels…….

Frustrating as shit.

I guess the Angels don't like home games on Friday

2nd Friday in a row

they used to be automatic on Friday night home games
Angels are even more automatic

on Saturday games

I'm not going to give blame of the game to a guy who gave up a single in 1 IP

and allowed a runner to score that wasn’t his. That’s retarded.

The blame goes to whoever was the least productive hitter on a night where an offense couldn’t score more than one goddamn run off a piece of shit pitcher on a piece of shit team.

That's the truth of the matter right there

The offense has been weak the past few games, and we only won because of good pitching, including Fuentes’, against a tough lineup. So I’m not going to get mad at Fuentes for this one.

+1 gazillion
Kendrick 0 fer 5 and Abreu 0 fer 4

Faggraphs has them pegged at -0.297 and -0.143, respectively. Woof.

Then I say Abreu

At least Howie made that great play in the 8th. But I agree with CKOD.

Like UCIHalo said
If Fuentes does the job he gets paid 9 million to do, Shields doesn’t need to go in. Another game in which the Halos should’ve won, but the blowpen once again starts the rally for the other team.

The question is

Why is Shields even on the roster?

you could say the same about the entire 'pen

I dont remember when
Stokes or Palmer was good

I was saying the entire pen doesnt belong on the roster

right now………..

Not sure what you are talking about here.

thought u were
replying to the other guy

cause he was good

By that logic

We should trade for Brendan Donnelly and convince Percival to come out of retirement to pitch for us….cause they were good too.

Nolan Ryan would do to eh
Percy might be better than Fuentes.
All those great seasons he had
That is the same bullcrap response that everyone gives

The dude WAS good in the previous decade, but has been terrible for a number of years and people keep cutting him slack. i hope the FO isn’t making the same mistake that some of his fanboys are.

Huh?

http://espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=4722

Not seeing how that’s someone who has been “terrible for a number of years”

He was awesome his entire career until last year

when he got hurt and probably never recovered. He’s 34.

I think he was the best set-up man in baseball for a few seasons. I’m sad to see his time here ending so poorly when he was a huge part of the team for so long.

He’s also our last guy left from the 2002 team.

Well

I’m looking here “terrible” might a bit too much for 08 but there is a clear decline in production and control since that year.

I’m mostly annoyed by people who defend him to death simply because of the fact he was good in the early 2000’s or because he was on the 2002 team. It’s stupid.
The guys stinks now and should be DFA’d based on his most recent work.

the past 1 1/2 seasons don't count as a number of years

especially when he was hurt for most of last year. Before that he had pitched the most innings for any reliever in a 5 year span.

I think he needs the same "suckitis" injury Wood had

Allowing him to get his head on straight in SLC. I’m of the opinion that this a physical limitation, but sending Shields down for a little bit won’t do any harm.

Sentimental value...

oh wait

Because he used to be awesome

no such thing as K-rod without Shields

Fuentes with 4 blown saves

and an ERA over 4. Not an elite closer

and bailed out of a 5th

by some heads up defense and bad base running by Los Doyers

His ERA actually went down tonight.
Blowpen

Can’t trust a single one of them anymore.

i picked fuentes

but man, panthers/BOTG are pretty harsh on closers. they never get props if they do their job, but always get the blame if they don’t

yea they do
everyone wanted Fuentes to become the perma closer after the Texas series.

I wouldn't say it was that drastic

More like some faith restored, but I’m pretty sure most people here don’t trust a single arm coming out of the pen.

Is getting
Kohn up or using Thompson too much to ask?

I think they called up Thomp today

yea
but Sosh is only gonna use him if there’s a +6 run deficit.

Yeah they did
according to fangraphs

howie’s the BOTG

He did miss an opportunity to win the game

yea
but even the clutchest hitters hit like what, .400 in those situations. The chance of not getting the hit’s higher.

Or you could look at it like, he was robbed on a great play by Callaspo

Can’t blame Howie when a guy makes a pick and throw like that

Howie?

How about Torii’s brilliant base running play? (I guess that was not helped by Howie either)

I thought Torii was safe...

but it was too close of a play anyway.

That was Naps who didn't help Torii
Despite some big hits this year.

Howie Kendrick isn’t that great.

yea
cause having the 2nd most RBIs among 2nd basemen isn’t that great at all.

And a .329 career OBP.

He’s an OK player. That’s about it, and nowhere near the hype he arrived with.

cause OBP is the only measure of a man's worth.
It does show that he creates outs at a higher rate than the average player.
But he's still a future batting champ!

: )

Yep, let's go ahead and DFA him.
uclahy?!??!?!?!?!?

Are you back?

I voted Fuentes only because the offense wasn't an option here

The Angel fan in me wants to believe that the Angels will win the division and overtake Texas.

The rational side of me sees a team with poor defense, poor offense (it still wasn’t all that great with Kendry since Sosh just would have sat Naps bat in favor of Mathis), a crappy bullpen, and only 3 reliable starters.

I didn't vote because the offense wasn't an option.

Just like the last several presidential elections, no good options.

They game caused me to beat my roommate up

now I have to find a new apartment. Thank Brian.

Quit hitting your mom, dude.

That ain’t cool.

So he moved?

Last time I heard he was living at his sisters place. The one that works for an hourly wage, and is looking to upgrade through an education.

That wasn't Greinke who shut down the Angels.

It was Kyle Davies; the guy with a career ERA, FIP and xFIP all over five.

This wasn’t the bullpen’s fault. The Angels cannot be shut down for just one run by such mediocrity. The Angels had ZERO extra base hits.

Izzy and JR need to get healthy. Adam LaRoche needs to be starting at first and Naps should be the regular catcher. This lineup sucks right now.

Well look on the bright side

……….

This year the Angels
seem to do well against good pitchers like CJ Wilson, Grienke, King Felix, but suck at these mediocre pitchers.

not just this year

it seems like its that way every year

The lineup is awful

I rather have Bobby Wilson catching than Mathis, but I guess Mathis is the “veteran presence” that magically turns pumpkins into aces.

I wish most Angels’ fans would realize that Mathis is just a very marginal MLB player that has no business getting so many PAs. I realize that Kendry is injured and Naps is needed at 1B, but if Kendry were here Naps would be rotting on the bench in favor of the perceived defensive greatness of Mathis. It’s just so frustrating.

I think most Angel fans know that Mathis blows
Unless you consider how well he started the season until an unlucky injury

Mathis isn’t this team’s problem right now.

Mathis supporters

Are few and far between.

unless it's the 2009 ALCS, then EVERYBODY loves Mathis.

  So yh, I guess I am a supporter.

Totally! 2009 ALCS...

Mathis was a doubles-hitting machine! Otherwise, he’s .220

Tell the manager.
Mattress had a pretty dang good CERA Friday night...
I guess at this point Fuentes is cemented as the closer.

I mean what else does he need to do to get demoted to cleat cleaning duties. A closer is supposed to shut the door and all Fuentes does is open that shit wide open. Also, you call up Rich Thompson because your bullpen sucks yet you bring in shields who has been shity all year. Ahhhhhh!! Anyways see ya tomorrow go Angels!

I swear I heard Jeff Biggs saying (pregame) that Fuentes had retired the last 10 batters he faced.

With that said, I swore he was going to break that streak after it was mentioned.

No shame

There’s no shame losing to the best. Mike Aviles, Yuniesky Betancourt, Willie Bloomquist, these are the best replacement players you could possibly overspend for. Bad things will happen against that murderer’s row.

Okay, seriously though, I can’t actually get mad at Fuentes. Saunders walked the first batter. Mathis let him advance to second. Fuentes made a decent pitch, a fastball at the knees. Aviles just hit it. That one is mostly on Saunders and Mathis.

And where’s the scorn for Torii Hunter? Between the inept defensive catching of Mathis and Napoli and an almost nightly base-running circus headlined by Torii, the Angels are a net loss on the base paths this season. Tonight it probably cost them. Maybe Matsui would have made an out with the bases loaded in the 8th, but Torii didn’t even give him the chance.

Gritty, insane aggressiveness is something we have grown accustomed to and are mostly numb towards.

Having an unreliable bullpen is a comparatively much newer development.

yea
Percival>Fuentes

Percival>Butcher

that’s one change I’d like to see

maybe
Salmon>Hatcher?

With Baltimore's Terry Crowley let go recently as batting coach,

Guess who’s the longest tenured batting coach in baseball with the same team?

Well if you are thinking it's Mickey your wrong.

He’s not the Angels hitting coach, he’s the team bobble-head.

I’ve been chomping at the bit to get rid of Hatcher for quite a while now. The “Frenzied Hitting” offense is getting weaker and weaker each year.

last I saw the Angels were like 5th in scoring runs...........

I’d say thats pretty darn good………

“weaker” is hardly the word I would use.

just rechecked..........they are 6th.

Found Here

Ehh they have quite a few teams floating around their total that could easily shove them down to about 15th.

Meh

You should read this instead

okay?

and somehow that tells me they are not 6th in the majors in scoring runs?

Do you honestly believe though with the Angels putting the 7-9 in the order as of late that those teams that are within 10 runs of them won’t be passing them up real soon? I ask out of simple curiosity, because right now they’re a borderline 1-6 club with 3 me’s at the end.

If I knew how to predict the future.......

I probably would be responding to you from some tropical island that I own and I would have nude victoria secret models typing for me.

It was Frandsen who would be up if Torii didn't make the out there.
Brain fart

My bad.

Glad Torii ran.

He was darn near safe and it took a great play by Kendall. Replays showed he was safe anyway, but if he scores on that play, he’s being talked about as the panther right now.

People were actually defending Torii's bone-headed baserunning believe it or not

There has been no adjustment in Soth’s strategy despite having a such terrible baserunners on the team.

Repeat after me

Never make the third out at home. Hell, you should never make the third out on the bases period.

This pathetic bullpen display

convinces me that we should not pursue trades this year. Play with what we’ve got, retool for next year. We should even consider being cautious sellers. Our farm needs some fresh livestock.

I agree with this..............
i dont blame fuentes.. he came on with a runner on 1st and the runner happend to steal.

i actually blame Torri with his brillant idea to try and score at home when the bases were loaded. frandsen coulda had a chance.

I'm with you on Torii,

but if the offense wasn’t so enemic tonight, he might not have taken that chance. He felt he had to make something happen. Don’t you think?

What was your opinion of Kingman's performance?
What a sack of shit game to see live.

oh well at least i was drunk.

How much did that cost ya?

I spent $37.00 on 2 vodka tonics and 2 beers on Tuesday (never got drunk).

There were two drunk ladies in F101 ...

making things very interesting, even if the game was not.

Details, please. Pix if you got 'em
One was bronskying the other...

it was quite magical.

Dang, it’s been a while since I have used “bronsky” I had to verify it’s meaning still held true and it does.

Thought that was morotboating
motorboating

I’d put the blame on the offense if I could. I guess when the club sees that they are facing a terrible pitcher, they take the night off. I don’t think I could count high enough the number of times over the last few seasons the Angels get shut down by some chump call up or a pitcher with a triple-bogey ERA.

We'll get 'em next time

Fuentes isn’t no different from the rest of our pullpen.

BOTG = Angels offense.

these hurt

cannot lose games like this to teams like that. offense killed us tonight. then texas loses? FML

Texas loses

That’s a good thing!

My bad everyone

I’ve only been to three games so far this season and Fuentes has blown the save in every single one of them.

Holy crap

That is the worst luck imaginable. I’m 4-1 on the season myself.

6-12 here after 20-11 last year.
And this just in

The Ghana soccer team thinks Fuentes is a choker.

Dude. You are NOT allowed to go to any more games.
Looks like I'm going again tonight

Sorry in advance for the blown save.

I just saw Fuentes pull in to the parking lot...

he didn’t stop for the two kids waiting for his autograph. Bad sign. Sweet vehicle, however, the color is a bit feminine. What dude drives a metallic purple car?

He seriously drives a purple car?

Wow.

looks something like this

Fitting...

at the game sat night, to show my son Brian’s car, we looked down at it from the center field area. He parked in the handicapped spot. WTF?

We have had way too many boneheaded moments on the basepaths.

Perhaps we should consider hiring the same shrink Phil Jackson hired for the Lakers..

…Not that it did any good for LO…

I am so glad we got into the weaker "strength of schedule" part of our season.

wtf?

Fuentes sucks nuts

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