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Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (21-17) @ Texas Rangers (19-18)

Pitching Probables:   LAA – Jered Weaver (6-2, 1.87 ERA)  TEX -- Alexi Ogando (3-0, 2.17)

Game Info: 5:05 PM PT; TV - Fox Sports West; Radio - KLAA 830 AM

Conventional wisdom says that you don't really know anything about the baseball season until Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Therefore, not too much should be read into an early season tilt within the division. But I think that these next three games are criitical for the Angels for a number of reasons. Texas is not healthy with the absence of Josh Hamilton severly hurting their offensive prowess. The rotation is set with Weaver, Haren and Santana getting the calls for the Halos (though the Rangers get to counter with their three best as well). And it won't feel like they are playing on the face of the sun like it will later in the year.

Now that we've had a night to digest the news of Kendrys Morales having his season declared over even though it never really began, it is time to take a step back to look at the big picture of how his loss will affect the Halos going forward.

The good news is that things aren't nearly as dire for the Angels as it was when he first hurt himself, probably because the Angels had somewhat planned for this contingency coming into the year.

Now, now, relax, I'm not going the "truther" route and suggesting that the Angels knew all along Morales wasn't going to play this season and conspired to make us believe otherwise (though 9/11 totally was an inside job, no question), merely that they knew a slow recovery was possible and this worst case scenario had at least a decent probability of coming to pass.

That's why they added another bopper in Vernon Wells (nice idea, poorly executed) and never seriously shopped Mark Trumbo even though it seemed that he had no real long-term future with the team.

All that has really done so far though is prevented us from having to suffer from another call-up of Paul McAnulty.  Like I said, that's good, but now that we know Morales is not coming back this year, I sure hope there is more to their contingency plan than that.

Daily Links for the LA Angels including the facts on the Morales surgery, Rodriguez to the DL and Jepsen called up, Guillen compares himself to Scioscia and much more...

The Story: The facts on the Kendrys Morales surgery.

The Monkey Says: Don't even bother clicking on that link, the facts are few and far between.  Essentially, there is going to be surgery, but we don't know when our how bad it will be.  What we do know is the Angels need to address what they are going to do now that they know for sure that they won't be getting Kendrys back in 2011.  I'll try and figure that out in a post later today.

The Story: Torii Hunter admits the team was "kinda down" after Morales hurt himself last year.

The Monkey Says: Amazingly, this was written before the big news broke.  One can't help but wonder if the team might not suffer a similar depression now that they have lost Kendrys again.  On the other hand, they never got him back, so how upset can they really be?

The Story: The Angels placed Francisco Rodriguez on the DL and called up Kevin Jepsen.

The Monkey Says: Losing Wolviriguez is no big deal, getting Jepsen back could be though.  The Angels badly need someone to displace Rodney as the righty setup man and Jepsen has the talent to do so even though he actually hasn't been that good in the minors.  One could even argue that Michael Kohn deserved the promotion more, but Jepsen does have a better history.

Fernando Rodney? GET 'EM OUTTA HERE

Kevin Jepsen? GET 'EM OUTTA HERE

Might as well throw in ol' Jeffy while I'm at it.

GET MATHIS OUTTA HERE!

White Sox 5 Angels 4 

I think we all saw this coming, if not when Morales ended up being not ready to start the season, then definitely when news broke about him seeking out a second opinion.

As it turns out, that second opinion was the one we didn't want to hear, that Morales would have to go under the knife again and thus miss the rest of the season.

What is even scarier is just how nebulous this whole situation still is.  From what I gleaned from the various statements on the diagnosis, this surgery is going to be explorative.  In other words, they don't really know what's wrong yet, so they can't even give a timeline for when he will be healthy.  Heck, the best they could offer us was that it would be a "minimum of six months."  A minimum!!!  That means we could be going through this recovery dance again next season.

Just shoot me.

The real question now is where the Angels go from here.  For that, well, I'll try and delve into that tomorrow.  I need to digest this news for a little while first... and maybe bash my head on the keyboard a few times.

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Chicago White Sox   (14-23) @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (21-16)

Pitching Probables: CWS – Jake Peavy (0-0, -.-- ERA)  LAA – Tyler Chatwood (2-1, 4.08 ERA)

Game Info: 7:05 PM PT; TV - Fox Sports West; Radio - KLAA 830 AM

What a game we have in store for us today, two young pitchers trying to prove their worth in the majors. One is a star attempting to rebound from a devastating injury and the other is a young stud attempting to cement his career in the majors and leave the minors in his rear view. Only one will be able to take that big step today.

And now your monthly edition of Monkeying Around!  This week's guest star: broken promises!!!!  Everyone please give them a round of applause!

Don't cry, monkey.  Some promises are made to be broken.