Man, if only I put some money down for this series.  This whole winning the first game and then losing the next two to start the season is getting old. For the past five years, the Angels have used this script, and quite frankly I’ve had enough. Let’s win an opening series! These starts are killing me.

Joe Blanton met Angels’ fans expectations in his first start, channeling his inner Ervin Santana, by giving up 3 homeruns (almost 4) in 5 innings of work.  Blanton needs to be reminded that our outfielders are actually confined by the outfield walls, and are in fact not allowed to jump over them and position themselves in the stands.

Clutch hitting was absolutely nonexistent late in the game.  In the 7^th, with Hamilton and Trumbo in scoring position, Howie flied out to end the inning.  Then in the 9^th, with Trout on second, Pujols lined out to right and Hamilton struck out to end the game.

Reds 5, Angels 4

30. Carlos Ramirez: Stock goes down slightly because he’s repeating AA to prove he can hit and the Angels went out of their way to acquire defensive catchers Chris Snyder and Luke Carlin, only to stash them in AAA.  If the Angels weren’t concerned with offense at all and only wanted defense, they would have promoted Carlos…if they were confident in his abilities.

29. Reid Scoggins: Up.  He’s ticketed for A Ball in Burlington.  If he really had some rough edges to smooth out, the Angels would’ve kept him in Rookie Ball for an additional year worth of work.  The fact is Scoggins’ rocket for an arm should propel him up through the system and catch the eye of scouts very soon.

28. Michal Roth: WAY UP.  After spending last season in short season Orem, Roth has been promoted to AA and will be a starter.  He may not have the blazing fastball to impress scouts, but his control and assortment of off-speed pitches could make him a crafty back end starter.  What’s more, if he impresses in AA he could be Big League ready as soon as next year.  Should we really be surprised after his legendary college career?

27. Cam Bedrosian: Down.  Bedrock Jr. is ticketed for A Ball in Burlington, two years after being drafted in the 1^st round.  I’m not sure how much lower his stock can really go at this point.

26. Andrew Taylor: Down.  If the Angels were confident in his ability to be a middle reliever or even a lefty specialist, they wouldn’t have acquired Sean Burnett or Brandon Sisk.  To top it off, Taylor is currently on the shelf with shoulder issues.  While doctors believe season ending surgery can be avoided, they haven’t given a time table on his return. 

25. Brandon Sisk: Down.  We traded for him, he entered camp and before long he was shut down with season ending surgery. 

24. Michael Clevinger: Same.  We knew he’d miss the season with surgery and wish him a speedy recovery.  Had he been healthy, he’d probably be in AA this season and a Top 10 prospect.

23. Mark Sappington: WAY UP.  Scouts I talked to are in love with his fastball, describing it as electric.  Those in the organization are also pleased to be working with such a stand up guy as well.  They call those intangibles.  Whatever they are, Sappington has them.  He’ll skip low A Ball entirely and head to the California League as a starter.

22. Wade Hinkle: Same.  I had expected him to jump up to Advanced A Ball after his collegiate career and performance in Orem, however, the Angels sent him to low A Ball.  The raw power remains.

21. Zachary Wright: Same.  He’s headed for Advanced A Ball after being drafted and skipping Rookie Ball altogether.  He should find the away games in the Cal League to his liking, being a power hitting catcher in a power hitting environment (his home park is the only pitcher friendly park in the league).

20. Steven Geltz: Down.  The Angels demoted him rather quickly and traded him to Tampa Bay for Dane De La Rosa, who I hear great things about, but is also 30 years old in AAA.

Welcome to what is going to be a new semi-regular feature at the site: Second-guessing Scioscia! As you probably surmised, it is a space in which I will be second-guessing the decision-making skills Mike Scioscia. This is something we've always done here at MWAH, but never in an official capacity. We do this now not because Scioscia is a shaky manager, I actually quite like him, but rather because every manager is faced with tough decisions on a regular basis and reconsidering how that decision should have been approached is interesting. Sure, there will also be some days we do this where the main point of the piece will be "WTF WAS SCIOSCIA THINKING!!!" Hopefully those will be few and far between. Hopefully this semi-regular piece will only be weekly rather than dail as well because at the end of the day, we mostly trust Scioscia and do not at all intend this feature to come off as a weekly hit job against him. Anyway, enough exposition, let's get to the first big second-guess of the season:

Why did Mike Scioscia pitch to Joey Votto in the bottom of the ninth with the game on the line?

For those that missed it, the Halos were faced with the difficult decision of being tied 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth with Scott Downs on the mound, a runner on second, one out and first base open. That left Scioscia with the difficult decision of letting the lefty Downs face left-handed Joey Votto, one of the best hitters in all of baseball, or pitching around Votto so Downs could face the right-handed Brandon Phillips but with the possibility of a double play on the table.

We all know what happened in real life. Scioscia let Downs face Votto and Votto smacked a hard grounder that Albert Pujols had a shot at making a play on, but he failed to do so. Game over. Reds win. But don't let the actual result bias you because while it makes Scioscia look bad, it just as easily could've made Scioscia look good had Pujols come up with the ball. The question isn't whether it worked out or not so much as whether or not Scioscia was making the optimal choice with the game on the line.

The April 4th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Madson dealing with more elbow tightness, the OC Register is dead to me and much more...

The Story: Ryan Madson resumed throwing after feeling more elbow tightness last week.

The Monkey Says: The frustrating thing is that Madson still hasn't gotten back to the throwing level he was at when he suffered his first setback over a month ago. They did an MRI for Madson after that first bout of soreness and it came back normal, so there probably isn't anything seriously wrong, but this inability to move forward in his rehab is getting very frustrating for everyone.

The Story: The OC Register has gone behind a full paywall and everyone is now writing them off.

The Monkey Says: Rev and I are pretty much on the same page here. This is the dumbest thing I have seen any newspaper do. I have no problem with them trying to charge for content, but the way they are pricing it is absurd. Every article is behind the paywall and you have to pay nearly $40 PER MONTH for the entire paper or you get nothing at all. A smart thing to do would've been to offer a la carte pricing for people who only want certain sections for a few bucks per month. Or maybe a tiered pricing structure based on a limit of article views. There is no way I am paying that, especially since their Angels coverage is not that good. Jeff Fletcher is a very good beat writer, but at the end of the day he is providing the same info that Alden Gonzalez at Angelsbaseball.com and Mike DiGiovanni at LA Times provide. After that, you'd be asking me to pay to read the offensively awful Jeff Miller and Mark Whicker. That ain't happening. As such, don't expect to see any links to OCR pieces in this space until their business people pull their head out fo their ass, although I have the feeling the paper will go belly up first.

Sure the game ended in as miserable, shocking, and abrupt fashion as you could expect. But one can give the Halos some props in this game.

They have overcome a tepid 2-26 from the three players who got their own special press conference at the outset of Spring Training to remain competitive in games 1 and 2 of the season. (Oh, and just a hint, their last names begin with the letters T, P, and H). The bullpen, though responsible for the loss in this game, remains a very hopeful sign. Kevin Jepsen and Garrett Richards fanned nearly everyone they faced, no doubt easing the mind of manager Mike Scioscia for future bullpen escapades. And even Scott Downs' nightmarish 9th inning wasn't completely his fault.

Hitting Shin Soo Choo to lead it off isn't what I'd advise for effective relief, but getting Joey Votto to ground to first base normally results in an out. Not this time, as Albert Pujols, he of the formerly golden glove, showed further signs of tarnish, bungling a fairly routine play and allowing Choo to laugh all the way to a Reds 5-4 victory.

Game Notes

-- Howie Kendrick and Alberto Callaspo carried the offense. Bet you won't be hearing that all too often this season. Or will you? Oh, boy.

-- C.J. Wilson did a great job of giving fans #PMA because of his ability to #throwstrikes for the first three innings. But mirroring his 2012 first half/second half Jekyll and Hyde act, he unraveled in the fourth, walking two and surrendering a home run. His final line (6 IP, 4 R, 3 ER) still afforded him a "quality start," but the Angels are going to need better from the No. 2 starter going forward.

-- The offense will wake up eventually, right? For that to happen, the Angels will need to see Albert Pujols get a ball out of the infield. Then, said ball will need to land on grass before someone's leather glove. It's not that hard, Albert. Vernon Wells just did it.

-- Brendan Harris continues to look solid. He leads the team in batting average (1.000) and has a walk to go along with it. Shut up about sample sizes!

Halo A-Hole of the Game

We've already taken digs at Mr. Pujols aplenty in this post, but his game-losing error that wasn't called an error and inability to hit the backside of a barn have landed him 2013's inaugural A-Hole of the Game.

An 8-15 month of April to start the sunk the 2012 Angels, or at least that is how the narrative goes. It was a month where just about everything went for the Halos including Albert Pujols' infamous homer drought and the Bullpen of Sorrow blowing every lead they could, sometimes blowing it twice, just to make sure it was good and blown.

That month was a particularly brutal experience for the fans that lived through it which is really too bad because, well, it looks like it might happen again.

No, I'm not about to freak out that Albert Pujols, Mike Trout and Josh Hamilton went (GASP!) one whole game without a homer. I'm going to wait at least a week before I reach for that panic button. I'm not that irrational. Rather, this early concern over the Angels fortunes largely stems from the realization that the scheduling gods of MLB apparently hate the Angels. Just look at their April schedule:

Apparently the MLB schedule makers really wanted to see how the Halos would've done had they gone to the post-season in 2012 because 18 of their first 28 games are against teams that made the playoffs last season (Reds, Rangers, A's and Tigers). Looking back to last season, the Halos managed to go .500 against those teams (though they did not face the Reds at all). Going back a few years, the Halos have faired considerably worse, especially against Texas who they had a losing record against in each of the 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons.

In the ten games where they get a reprieve from the brutal opponents they have to play the Astros, Twins and Mariners, but will have to face Minnesota and Seattle on the road. Those are still games they should win, but still, road games are tougher even if the opponent stinks.

OK, so big deal, they might be kind of average in April. Why all the hand-wringing?

Expectations, that's why.

The April 3rd, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Weaver's velocity down even more, Angels bullpen showing early promise and much more...

The Story: Jered Weaver succeeded against the Reds despite his velocity dropping even further.

The Monkey Says: This wasn't in the article, but Pitch f/x had Weaver's fastballs averaging 85.8 MPH during his start. That's over 2 MPH down from his 2012 average and would've been the fourth-slowest fastball velocity amongst qualifed pitchers last year. The good news is that most pitchers see their velocity increase over the course of the first few weeks of the season, but Weaver clearly has a long way to go just to match his 2012 velocity, much less his career average velocity.

The Story: The Angel bullpen is showing some early promise and depth.

The Monkey Says: They were great on Monday, but let's not go planning the parade down Katella just yet. The increased depth of Richards, Lowe and Burnett will be a big help, especially with Madson out, but there is still legit concern over Frieri's consistency, Downs' health, Jepsen's possible regression and the general question marks that Richards and Lowe both are. Predicting bullpen performance is a fool's errand to begin with, but I remain skeptical mostly because they have burned us so bad the last few years.