Joe Blanton showed up tonight.  The rest of the Angels? Nope.  Joe came in and threw 8 strong innings (an Angels first) giving up 2 earned runs.  Chris Tillman, the Fountain Valley High kid, just wanted it more.  He came in and shutdown the Halos through 8 innings, giving up only 3 hits.  The Big Four combined to go 2- 14, with Pujols’ homer coming too little too late in the 9^th inning.

Angel fans expected big things with the Orioles coming into town.  Maybe Josh would hit four homers again, maybe Trout would miraculously rob another homerun.  But then, we were reminded that all happened in Baltimore, not Anaheim.

Angels 1, Orioles 5

This past weekend, I decided to attend a couple AAA games for the Angels, mostly due to the convenience of only having to travel two hours to see them play in Sacramento, but also to get a better idea as to what they have to offer in terms of pitching and hitting.  I can’t say I was terribly surprised by the results, but they were considerably less optimistic than even I could have imagined.  Let’s start with offense:

Catcher – Chris Snyder.  So far, the newly acquired Snyder (and since dealt) has been the best offensive player for the Angels AAA affiliate.  But one look at his swing and it is painfully obvious that Snyder had pre-tailored his swing to succeed in this environment.  He was swinging for the fences and even when he didn’t great contact, the light air compensated and helped him accumulate extra base hits. Quite a bit more likely was a strikeout and infield pop-up.

Outfielder – Brad Hawpe.  Hawpe used to have a quirky pre-pitch timing and loading mechanism that allowed him to hit the long ball in Colorado.  But comparing his swing now to what it was then, it almost looks like he’s completely overdoing it.  His hands are all over the place and the only pitch he can do anything with is the inside fastball.  Granted, he can murder that pitch, but I don’t see any reason why pitchers would ever give that pitch to him.

Infielder – Bill Hall.  I really liked what I saw from Hall this Spring, but after seeing him in Sacramento this weekend, it’s clear he’s either not 100% healthy or he isn’t playing at 100%.  He made some fine defensive grabs at third base, but his quickness and range of motion made it all but impossible for him to play second base or shortstop as he did earlier in his career.  He looked strong, but slow.  At the plate, his timing isn’t back yet like it was in Spring Training, but it seems like he’ll get there.  He’s doing a very good job at keeping his weight back on the pitch and isn’t fooled by much.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following  is a guest post from Michael Pina. Michael Pina is a writer for ESPN’s TrueHoop Network. His work has been published at The Classical and ScoreBig.com. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelVPina.

There were many rational reasons why the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim signed Albert Pujols to a 10-year, $240 million contract five weeks before his 32^nd birthday.

Most of them, unfortunately, are vaguely related to winning baseball games. Paying him $30 million in 2021, when Pujols would be 41 years old, has almost nothing to do with that.

Similar to just about every player in professional sports history who ever signed an outrageous nine figure contract at the age of 32, it’s nearly impossible for Pujols to live up to the public’s expectations.

Albert Pujols is no longer Albert Pujols. Let’s get that out of the way before going any further. Excusing the very real possibility that he isn’t a human being, the natural aging process will prevent him from ever scraping at the ceiling of another 50 homerun season again. Those days are long gone.

The May 2nd, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Trumbo tells how he worked to improve, Downs hurt, Maronde demoted and much more...

The Story: Mark Trumbo talks about how he has gone about improving himself.

The Monkey Says: This piggybacks on comments Trumbo made last week, but it once again goes to show how he has worked himself into a better hitter by learning and making adjustments. Perhaps he should take Josh Hamilton under his wing.

The Story: Scott Downs left last night's game with a side injury.

The Monkey Says: He is probably headed for the DL if only because Downs never has just a day-to-day injury. Surely this has nothing to do with Scioscia wildly overworking the 37-year old the last few weeks.

Sometimes being smart sucks. For instance, back when the season began I wrote about how the April schedule for our beloved Halos looked particularly brutal. Thanks to a poor rotation and an incompetent bullpen, I ended up looking pretty smart. I also ended up with an ulcer because I really didn't want to be right about that and it is now stressing me out.

But sometimes being smart can be good! In fact, it can be good in the same way that I just showed you that it was bad. As it turns out, the scheduling gods of MLB have something of a sick sense of humor when it comes to the Angels. Having put them through the ringer in April and pushing fans to the brink of quitting on the team, they gift wrap the month of May for the desperate and ragged Halos as their one chance to right the ship or good back on track or dig themselves out of the hole or whatever tired metaphor you prefer.

First a quick caveat. Sabermetric research strongly suggests that teams are pretty much what they are after 30 games. There is some wiggle room there for improvement via promoted players or guys coming back from injury, but by the 30-game mark, if you stink then you are likely to continue to stink at about the same level. In case you haven't noticed, the Angels really stink. So enter into this exercise knowing that the odds are already against them to suddenly flip the switch and make good on all of their pre-season promise.

Just when it looks like things can't get any worse for the Angels, Mike Scioscia goes and makes a fool of himself. This scene from last night's Angels-Athletics games features a confused Scioscia heading out to the mound with a 3-1 count on Adam Rosales. Of course Scioscia can't do that because pitching coach Mike Butcher went out for a mound visit to pitcher Nick Maronde at the beginning of Rosales' at-bat:

This looks particularly bad for Scioscia because it means he either doesn't know the rules, forgot that his own pitching coach made a trip to the mound four pitches ago or he lost track of the count and thought Maronde had just thrown ball four not ball three. Let's just say with questions about Scioscia's job security already abound, this isn't going to help.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the pitching change that Scioscia wanted to make didn't help. Barry Enright entered the game, to face a lefty which would seem to be an ideal match-up for Maronde, and immediately gave up a bases-clearing double.

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