April is done and so am I with letting pre-season preconceptions factor into the Player Power Rankings. No longer shackled by that abritrary rule that I made up myself, I may now mete out justice to those who have disappointed us thus far....

RANK	PLAYER	CHANGE	COMMENTS
1		+2 Last Week: 3	Mark Trumbo - Is there any question that he is the Angels' best player right now?
2		-1 Last Week: 1	Mike Trout - He finally looks like he is on the verge of breaking out again, although I feel like I've said that a few times already this season.
3		-1 Last Week: 2	Albert Pujols - At some point the Angels need to do something about his aching feet. A nice start would be abandoning the foolish idea of letting him play the field.
4		+2 Last Week: 6	Howie Kendrick - His quietly good season continues.
5		-1 Last Week: 4	Peter Bourjos - Just when he seemed like he was going to establish himself as the leadoff hitter, he fell victim to the exploding hamstring epidemic in that 19-inning game.
6		+4 Last Week: 10	Jason Vargas - At least someone is finally doing something to make one of Dipoto's off-season acquisitions look smart.
7		-- 0 Last Week: n/a	Alberto Callaspo - It is good to have Callaspo back but it is less good to have him back and batting fifth.
8		-- 0 Last Week: n/a	Erick Aybar - I was just thinking that a low-OBP leadoff hitter is exactly what this sputtering lineup needs!
9		+2 Last Week: 11	C.J. Wilson - As further evidence that pitcher wins are a useless statistic, I present the court with C.J. Wilson's 3-0 record. I rest my case, your honor.
10		+4 Last Week: 14	Tommy Hanson - You have to give him some respect for the way he came back from the death of his stepbrother to pitch so well against the A's.
11		-4 Last Week: 7	Ernesto Frieri - The Angels need to make a trade for "this year's Ernesto Frieri" because the old Ernesto Frieri kind of sucks right now.
12		-3 Last Week: 9	Chris Iannetta - After sitting out three games to rest thanks to catching a 19-inning game, Iannetta may have inadvertently opened the door to Hank Conger stealing playing time from him.
13		-5 Last Week: 8	Scott Downs - Stop me if you heard this one before, but Scott Downs hurt himself trying to field a comebacker. Methinks Jose Mota needs to start bringing someone along to yoga class.
14		-9 Last Week: 5	Garrett Richards - Well, the questionable decision to return him to a relief role backfired on Scioscia pretty quickly, didn't it?
15		+10 Last Week: 25	Michael Kohn - Kohn has been trying to break into the Halo bullpen for a few seasons now and I think he finally found his role, he's a 17th inning guy.
16		+5 Last Week: 21	Joe Blanton - The streak of giving up a hit in each inning is over! And now, suddenly, Joe Blanton has morphed into a hard luck loser rather than just a general loser.
17		-2 Last Week: 15	Jerome Williams - Oh, right, that's why he wasn't part of the Opening Day rotation. Another master stroke from Scioscia.
18		-5 Last Week: 13	Dane De La Rosa - DDLR might be the new Rich Thompson/Jason Bulger/Kevin Gregg. In low leverage situations, he is lights out. With the game on the line, he is a virtual lock for a meltdown.
19		-- 0 Last Week: 19	Hank Conger - As we saw with running "effort" after that bunt, Conger's real role on this team is to provide comic relief.
20		+2 Last Week: 22	J.B. Shuck  - He has been more effective than expected, but that doesn't make it OK that the Halos don't have a better option or even a right-handed platoon for Shuck while Bourjos is out.
21		-5 Last Week: 16	Josh Hamilton - Hamilton is now in the five-hole full-time. If he keeps hitting like this, let's hope Scioscia doesn't wait another month to drop him further down the order.
22		-5 Last Week: 17	Luis Jimenez - He fell off a cliff in the last two weeks, but it is good to see he still did enough to earn a bench spot.
23		-3 Last Week: 20	Brendan Harris - In his time filling in for Aybar and Callaspo, Harris registered a -0.3 WAR. Yep, don't ever worry about spending money on the bench, Jerry.
24		-- 0 Last Week: n/a	Barry Enright - If only Enright could have survived one more inning in that marathon game, we would've been treated to a position player pitching for the A's and likely an uplifting win. Instead, we haz all the sads.
25		-- 0 Last Week: n/a	Ryan Brasier - The fact that he even made the active roster tells you all you need to know about the performance and health problems the Angels have had to deal with.

Dropped from rankings: Michael Roth (clearly called up too soon), Andrew Romine (rendered obsolete), Sean Burnett (hurt because of course), Nick Maronde (not as MLB ready as we first thought)

Biggest Riser: Kohn, up 10 spots

Biggest Dropper: Richards, down 9 spots

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There is a new entry on the extinct species list: the Scioscia apologist. As of today, I am done. Done with sticking up for Mike Scioscia. In the struggles of the last few years there have been few who have defended Scioscia as ardently as I have. But now I must relent and admit that it is now time for the Angels to fire Mike Scioscia.

And I mean that literally they need to fire him *now.* Today. This morning. This hour. This minute. At least if the Halos are clinging to any hope of salvaging their season.

In my many defenses of Scioscia I have said that he is one of the top managers in the game. Like all managers, he has flaws, but his strengths greatly outweigh them. I still mostly believe that to be true. He just isn't right for this team anymore and the longer Dipoto and Moreno wait to admit that, the more damage they do to the already tenuous long-term viability of the Angel franchise.

Make no mistake, Mike Scioscia is going to be fired. This will be his last season at the helm of the Angels. It is a question of when, not if. And the when is critically important. Some have suggested that Arte Moreno has too much respect for Scioscia to let him be fired mid-season. That would be a mistake. As we've seen in Pujols and Hamilton in recent years, even the best players in the world go through bizarre, inexplicable slumps. Well, so do managers.

The May 6th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including it might be time for Scioscia to go, Richards returns to bullpen and much more...

The Story: Ken Rosenthal believes it might be time Mike Scioscia and the Angels to part ways.

The Monkey Says: I hate to say it, but I agree and I think it needs to happen today. Come back later this morning and I will explain why because it isn't necessarily for the reasons you might think.

The Story: Garrett Richards was shifted back into the bullpen with Jerome Williams taking his spot in the rotation.

The Monkey Says: This was a really tough decision that I was split on initially but eventually began to lean towards favoring it. The Halos desperately needed an impact reliever and Richards was their best internal option, but he was also doing a passable job in the rotation. Obviously this ended up blowing up in Scioscia's face as Williams pitched poorly in his start and Richards made two relief appearances, one that resulted in the Angels losing in extras and the next caused a one-run deficit to turn inot a four-run deficit. Literally nothing Scioscia tries works anymore no matter how smart or dumb it is.

The game started out so promissing. Jerome Williams gave up a run in the top of the first, and the Angels responded by scoring three in the bottom of the first. Even when the Orioles rallied back on a two-run homerun by JJ Hardy, Trout gave them the lead again one a solo homerun. However, it just wasn't meant to be. The Angels had two opportunities with the bases loaded and got zero runs out of it as both times J.B. Shuck got out, and as a result they could never pull away from the Orioles. But that empitomizes the Angels season. So much early promise, only for the Angels to find a way to mess it up.

The real story of this game were the walks by Angel pitchers. The walks, for the seemingly millionth time this season, came back to haunt the Angels. All three walks Jerome Williams issued came around to score, and the game really got out of hand in the top of the 8th when Dane De La Rosa issued a 4 pitch walk to Manny Machado. Small hint to Angels pitchers, if you want to win stop issuing so many walks. Hopefully the Angels turn the page and start fresh against Houston.

Angels 4, Orioles 8

Games Notes

-- Mike Trout continued his hot hitting with another homerun in the 4th inning to give the Angels the lead. With Trumbo and Trout continuing their, the return of the TNT combo is about to start carrying the Angels.

-- Josh Hamilton only struck out once today (that's an improvement right?). I think it's gotten to the desperation point when Angel fans are excited he simply made contact

-- Scott Downs injury doesn't seem to be effecting him anymore as he looked solid en route to a 1-2-3 inning. This is HUGE benefit because the Angels bullpen has been ravaged by injuries and they need all the dependable relievers they can find

-- Hank Conger made an appearance as the DH today and he faired quite well with an RBI hit and a walk. Conger has always excelled with the bat and it's great to see Scioscia finding innovative ways to get his bat in the line-up.

Halo A Hole

As much as I want to blame the pitching staff, if J.B. Shuck had found a way to drive in a run when he had TWO opportunities with the bases loaded the pitching staff never would have had the opportunity to blow it. Get well soon Peter Bourjos, the Angels badly need you

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For years the Angels prided themselves on playing immensely smart baseball.They played aggressively on the basepaths and forced other teams to make mistakes. They played solid defense and got timely hits from unlikely sources. The current roster is the antithesis of those teams. Today the Angels made defensive miscues that led to runs, the baserunners couldn't execute on the bases and hitters who needed to make contact swung and missed. So even though they overcame nearly being no-hit to tie it up and send it to extra innings, it was the little things that did them in in the end.

Angels 4 Orioles 5

Do you realize that the much maligned Angels' starting rotation has thrown quality starts in 7 of their last 8 games? Is it really possible that the Halo rotation isn't as bad as it seems? Could pitching be the thing that gets the Angels moving up the standings rather than the vaunted offense? I know I might be getting carried away a bit, but the starters are doing what we hoped they would and more. The rotation has been so good that management thought Garrett Richards, who has the best stuff of the staff, should be sent to the pen to shore up that mess. Of course, this could all be some sick dream that will turn into a nightmare at any moment, but for now let us all dream this sweet dream...

Angels 4 Orioles 0

Welcome to the first edition of Monkeying Around of the 2013 season. If you're new here, this is a post in which I compile random thoughts because they are either not fully formed or I am too lazy properly research them. Enjoy my half-assery!

--It appears that I might be the final holdout for the Angels turning this season around. I'm not sure if that makes me a shining beacon of hope or a massive dunce. I just know that I refuse to give up on a team in May and by that I mean I refusing to give into panic notions on firing the coaching staff or engaging in a fire sale, both of which are articles I saw today... MAY 3RD! I'm not stupid, I see this team's flaws and know how hard it is to dig out of a 10-18 hole, but I don't see the point in writing a eulogy for a team with 134 games left to go.

--One thing I keep hearing about is the team's lack of "fire." This, of course, is something we merely assume based on demeanor and body language. None of us are in the dugout or clubhouse but infer how the team is playing based on what we see on TV. This might be my biggest pet peeve, especially when it devolves into statements like "Look at these guys, they don't even care about winning!" Unless you are a psychic, shut the hell up.