The July 28th, 2011 edition of daily news for the LA Angels including reactions to Ervin Santana's no-hitter, inside Jered Weaver's BABIP, Angels focusing on bullpen help via trade and much more...

The Story: Ervin Santana's no-hitter was a surprise, but also not a surprise.

The Monkey Says: I think I have always liked Santana a bit more than most Angel fans, so I appreciate how good he can be, but even I am a little surpised to see that he is capable of spinning such a dominant performance like he put forth yesterday.

The Story: Santana's no-hitter shows that his tools are still there.

The Monkey Says: I don't think there was ever much of a question about his slider, the concern has always been in regards to his fastball and the velocity he lost off of it a few years ago.  What I think this glosses over is that Santana is also maturing as a pitcher and attacking in a smarter manner while also not getting rattled in pressure situations like he did his first few years in the league.

The game that was 27 years in the making finally found life today in Ervin Santana's no-hitter, the first solo no-hitter for the Angels since 1984. All of this was made possible not just by Santana's efforts, but the rest of the teams as well. Howie Kendrick made a few astonishing game saving plays and Bobby Wilson called one hell of a game, something I'm not too sure the rest of the catching staff (all 1 of em) could do. It's great to see Santana cap off what was other a rather unimpressive series for this team. Maybe this could be the shot of adrenaline the Angels needed to hit a blazing hot streak and fly past the Rangers.

Angels 3 Indians 1 

We are back with another week of Angel tweets.  However, this time we are getting deep, like existential thought deep with one of the Angel youngsters which is a nice reprieve after all the boner talk last week.  But in an even bigger surprise than baseball players having brains, Chevy Clarke takes a break from his usual inanity to try to explain himself.  He fails, but at least he tries.

Howie Kendrick is now a photographer - @HKendrick47 Got into photography this past year. If you want to see some of my photos go to flickr.com/kendrickfamily47

• Anything that keeps him busy and thus too occupied to film more commercials for Howard's Superstores is just fine with me.

Mark Trumbo gets philosophical - @Mtrumbo44 "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could." -Emerson

• Ralph Waldo Emerson?  Wow.  That's some deep stuff Trumbo is getting into.  If only we could get him to read something that convinces him to actually take a pitch every once in awhile.

Inspiring words from Trevor Reckling - @TRECKLING30 While you sleeping someone else is getting that extra edge over you and working 10 x harder

• Nice to see that Reckling can always fall back on a career as a motivational speaker if this whole baseball thing doesn't work out.

Chris Pettit is sweaty - @Cpetti815 I think I just sweated out a gallon of liquid

• This tweet was a one shot tweet, so no context was provided which only makes the imagine what could possibly have made him sweat so profusely and exactly what liquid he was sweating out.  Whatever the case may be, I'm pretty sure it is gross.  So much for the artsy fartsy trend in the tweets this week.

...and finally, our weekly deriding of what a horrible tweeter Chevy Clarke is might be starting to pay off.  While there was plenty of drivel in his timeline this week, Chevez mixed in a few tweets that actually suggest he is capable of rational thought.

@OfficialChevy In order to understand my train of thought u would put urself my position.. U can't expect me to think like u cause my life not like urs

• This is standard megalomaniacal thinking from Chevy, but at least it is an actual thought.  For what it is worth, I'm glad that I can't think like Chevy because I'm pretty sure it would result in my brain melting out of my ears.

@OfficialChevy TO ALL HATERS.. If u have nothing to say positive ... KEEP THEM COMING.. My motivation to make ur face turn blue when its all said and done.

• See?!?!  We are getting through!  Granted, Chevy is still incapable of using proper grammar and is mixing his metaphors, but at least he is finally aware that most people want him to shut the hell up.

The July 27th, 2011 edition of daily news for the LA Angels including Angels approve more reportedly payroll, Erick Aybar offered straight up for Jose Reyes, Nationals want Peter Bourjos and much more...

The Story: The Angels are rumored to have officially approved a payroll increase AND offered Erick Aybar for Jose Reyes, straight up.

The Monkey Says: Now THAT is a bombshell!  Too bad I don't believe any of it.  Moreno loves Aybar and refuse to believe they would trade him straight up for potentially just two months of Jose Reyes.  I don't even really think the Angels have actually approved more spending, or at least not a significant amount of more spending.

The Story: The Washington Nationals have inquired on Peter Bourjos.

The Monkey Says: Angels fans went nuts on Twitter when this rumor came out.  For some reason everyone just assumed that it was a Bourjos for Zimmerman trade, which is absolutely preposterous and I am ashamed that so many fellow fans jumped to this conclusion.  If you've paid any attention to the Nats this year, they've been searching desperately for a regular center fielder since Opening Day, so they are kicking the tires on just about everyone right now, but not so they can give away their franchise cornerstone.  There is a chance the Angels could trade Bourjos this off-season (though I doubt it), but it makes zero sense for them to trade him away in the middle of a playoff race.

Jordan Walden came awfully close to making Yogi Berra proud, didn't he?  It was nearly deja vu all over again for the rookie closer, but this time Waldo managed to wiggle his way out of it.

Angels 2, Indians 1

Like I said in the game preview, Cleveland is just a bad, bad place for Angel closers and Walden seemed set out to prove me right.  Fortunately, Matt LaPorta must be my Walden's guardian angel, because he bailed Jordan out in a big way by bouncing into an easy doubleplay to grant Walden a reprieve.  Of course, that still left Walden to deal with last night's hero, Jason Kipnis, and dealt with him he did, by smoking the kid on four pitches.

Game.  Set.  Match, Walden.

Now the question is if Jordan is over this slump he's fallen into.  Based on his pumped up reaction, I would say that he was pretty relieved to survive this outing but it wasn't in a way that suggested that he was worried about the future, which is great, because that is the kind of mindset a reliever needs.  I feel confident that he's going to be in solid shape mentally going forward, but mechanically, he probably still needs some work, even though he wasn't nearly as wild as he was on Monday.

Just to be safe though, let's hope the Angels can maybe score more than two runs tomorrow to win comfortable and spare us from a third Walden save adventure in Cleveland.

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Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (55-48) @ Cleveland Indians (52-48)

Pitching Probables: LAA – Jered Weaver (13-4, 1.81 ERA)  CLE – Josh Tomlin (11-4, 4.12 ERA)

Game Info: 4:05 PM PT; TV - Fox Sports West; Radio - KLAA 830 AM

There are loads of reasons to dislike the city of Cleveland.  It is dirty.  It is smelly.  Their river was once so polluted that it actually caught on fire.  Their sports teams have done nothing but torture their citizens.  But above anything else, I dislike Cleveland because for as long as I have been an Angel fan, the Indians have destroyed each and every Angel closer.

Cleveland was a living nightmare for Troy Percival, as he had a 5.90 ERA and suffered nine losses at the hands of the Tribe over the course of his career.

Even K-Rod struggled with the Indians, posting a 5.01 ERA against them, his worst mark against any AL team.

And now last night, they claimed Jordan Walden as well.  One blown save does not a disaster make, but I can't say I have any warm and fuzzies about him coming in for a save should a chance arise tonight.

The trade deadline is just a few days away, but nobody is exactly sure what, if anything, the Angels have up their sleeve.  With so many confusing and conflicting rumors to sort through, the best way to figure out what embattled Angel GM Tony Reagins is planning is to take a look back through his history at the deadline.

We all know Reagins is not afraid to make a deal, but we can learn a lot about his trade-working train of thought by picking out the major patterns he has displayed over the last three seasons.

2008 - Traded Casey Kotchman and Steve Marek for Mark Teixeira

In his official trade deadline as the lead decision maker, Reagins swung for the fences by breaking from the standard Angel protocol by acquiring a big name rental player.  Of course, the hope was that this would give them a leg up in signing Tex, but it didn't work out, though the Angels didn't end up giving up much to get those few months of Teixeira, though that was largely helped by Kotchman flaming out horribly the instant he landed in Atlanta.