He's tried canceling batting practice.  He's tried batting Hunter second.  He's even let Callaspo hit clean-up.  What other crazy ideas does Mike Scioscia have up his sleeve as he tries to do anything and everything to get the Angel lineup to show some signs of life.

Sosh seems to be getting pretty desperate with his moves now, which makes me worry that he might be running out of ideas.  Never fear, The Monkey is here to help with some ideas of his own!

I'm all out of ideas, you got any?

Daily Links for the LA Angels including Angels continue raiding the college ranks on the final day of the draft, the Halos draft Scioscia's son, the 2011 Angels are just like the 1976 Angels (and not in a good way) and much more...

The Story: The Angels drafted almost entirely college players on the third and final day of the draft.

The Monkey Says: That's 41 out of 49 picks coming from the college ranks.  You'vs got to hand it to them, they sure picked a direction and committed to it.  I actually think this is an interesting way to approach the amateur draft.  The Halos have a much better track record of developing young international talent, so it does seem wise to complement that collection of more raw prospects with some more polished American products.

The Story: Mike Scioscia's son Matt was drafted in the 45th round by... the ANGELS!!!

The Monkey Says: No way!!!!  That never happens.  And by never, I mean all the time.  I know this will prompt some to make the inevitable Mike Piazza comparison as he was also drafted late as a favor to Tommy Lasorda, but those kinds of things are one in a million (one in ten million if you account for the persistent steroid rumors that plagued Piazza).

What are you gonna do guys?

What are you gonna do?

I felt no emotion after that final strike call on Howie Kendrick, it's almost as if I've been...desensitized to losing. That makes me shudder just thinking about it, what have I become? Is this what being a Mets fan is like? Now I'm scared.

Angels 3 Rays 4 

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Tampa Bay Rays (32-29) @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (30-33)

Pitching Probables: TB – James Shields (5-4, 2.77 ERA)  LAA – Jered Weaver (7-4, 2.14 ERA)

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

My mother always taught me (and by my mother teaching me, I mean the cartoons she had me watch when she just sat me in front of the TV), that if you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all.  So, I'll just say one thing about the Angels and that is-

Ummm...

Hold on...

I'll think of something...

Can I pass?

Daily Links for the LA Angels including Amarista demoted to make room for Wells, the Halos go heavy on college players in Day 2 of the draft, watch CJ Cron find out he got drafted and much more...

The Story: The Angels activated Vernon Wells and demoted Alexi Amarista yesterday.

The Monkey Says: We know this already since Wells played last night, but I list this more to discuss Amarista.  Alexi pretty much fell on his face in his brief time in the majors, but he had been tearing up Triple-A prior to his call up.  What will be interesting now is to see if Amarista can heat right back up or if maybe his rough time in the majors might have hurt his confidence.

The Story: The Angels select 21 college players versus just 6 high schoolers on Day 2 of the draft.

The Monkey Says: This is a departure from the Bane days of the draft since Eddie preferred to go with more high risk-high reward high schoolers.  Clearly Wilson, likely at the behest of Tony Reagins, wanted to continue restocking the farm with college players that are both surer bets and also likely to reach the majors faster.  Obviously, we won't know if this strategy will pay off for years to come yet.

When I first made the decision to move up here to Seattle, one of my biggest concerns was that I was no longer going to have easy access to the Angels on TV.  But aren't I lucky because in the three games the Angels have played since I arrived in the Pacific Northwest, they have been completely and totally unwatchable with tonight being no exception.

Rays 4, Angels 1

Sure, I could spend a little green and get the MLB Extra Innings package or the MLB.tv package but what is my incentive to do soe when all I would be doing is paying to watch the Halos get their butts handed to them by the likes of Alex Cobb.  Alex Cobb doesn't even know who the hell he is!  Sorry, but I'd much rather spend the $100 (or whatever) on having the homeless guy outside my building punch me in the balls once.  I'd suffer the same amount of pain as watching the Angels but at least it would only eat up a few minutes of my night instead of three hours.

I'll tell you what, I'll make deal with the Halos.  If they can win three games in a row and score five or more runs in all of those games, then I will bit the bullet and drop the dinero on an MLB package.  I figure that I won't have to make good on that bet until some time in late August, so it should be a real bargain by then.

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Tampa Bay Rays (31-29) @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (30-32)

Pitching Probables: TB – Alex Cobb (0-0, 5.91 ERA)  LAA – Dan Haren (5-3, 2.29 ERA)

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

OK, Vernon, let's try this again.  Your first Angel debut didn't go very well, but after missing a few weeks with a groin injury, we can all just hit the reset button and give you a re-do on the debut thing.

That will only work though if the Angel fans have been able to forget about what a rampant disappointing he's been this season during his absence.  That means no chorus of boos when he gets announced or takes his first at-bat and, yes, even when he inevitably pop up during that at-bat.

I've said it before but I will say it again, the Angels need Wells to get it going.  In case you haven't noticed, the Angel lineup is terrible and Wells is the best chance at a shot in the arm, especially since he has the ability to be a potent middle of the order bat that could either help get Torii Hunter going by taking some pressure off of him or by just supplanting Hunter in the clean-up role altogether.  I'm probably looking through some rose-colored glasses here, but I think Wells can actually do it so long as the boo birds aren't so loud.  Vernon has had enough time to get over his "new guy" jitters and get himself to a mental place where he can just relax and do his typical job, which is being a pretty good baseball player.