How Will the Angels Lose? Bingo Edition!

Written by Garrett Wilson on .

The Angels keep losing and losing in ways that are truly excruciating to watch. Viewing a Halo game has become a real chore, but fret no more! MWAH is proud to present a game to liven things and make the Angels watchable once again. Say hello to "How Will the Angels Lose? Bingo Edition!"

The premise of the game is simple. It is just like the Bingo game you played as a child and will play in your senior citizen years, only instead of letter and number combinations, the card spaces are set according to the various tragedies that befall the Halos during a typical game. Get five in a row and you have BINGO! That's right, you can still win even though the Angels will probably lose! You can finally watch an Angel game and feel good at the end of the night.

Here is the board, go ahead and print it out to use at home!


Sciosciaface

Blown save

Insurance
run allowed

Hitter injury

Halo not lit

Lose to Astros

Back-breaking GIDP

Walk-off loss

Anonymous reliever

TOOTBLAN

Pujols in pain

Pitcher injury
FREE
Bases loaded, 0 runs

Blooper reel

Stupid sac
bunt

3+ Butcher
mound visits

No SB attempt
in obvious
SB situation

Angels lose
by one-run

Half empty
stadium

Hamilton strikes
out on
3 pitches

Post-game
closed door meeting

Pitcher walks
in a run

Starting pitcher goes less than 6 IP

Costly late
inning error

If this doesn't work for you, just try drinking... a lot... or heroin. Either way.


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Jerry Dipoto's rebuild/reload plan

Written by Scott Allen on .

Like any Angel fan, I've continued to monitor their free agency decisions and subsequent performances for the past two seasons since Jerry Dipoto was hired.  I'm beginning to recognize a pattern that likely reflects the approach Dipoto has taken toward putting his own personal touch on the Angels system.  To the untrained eye, it appears as though the Angels have a bloated payroll full of under performers and an empty minor league system that is offering little or no support to a struggling Major League roster.  I'm not here to give a rosy red assessment of the state of the organization.  Those statements are relatively true.  But ask yourself this question, why does the club look like it currently does and why does the minor league system look barren?  Wasn't Dipoto supposed to be a smarter, more innovative "new school" type of General Manager?
 
The best way I can explain the Dipoto regime and his moves is that this man has his eye on the future.  He's more of a long term architect than GM who is looking for answers in the short term.  The signing of C.J. Wilson, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton strikes me as the sort of moves designed to stabilize a team in the short term while Dipoto essentially builds an organization from the ground up.  I believe that Dipoto's design was simply meant to add to current Angels roster immediately before disappearing from the free agent scene for a few years while the organization retools itself.  If you're looking for proof that Dipoto is making strategic calculations and not just desperately taking shots in the dark, consider the other moves he's made. 

In essence, Dipoto inherited a burning house when he signed on to be the Angels GM.  The frame of the house was still intact but most of the interior had already perished in the flames.  The Angels were a decent team, but little did most people know that because of faulty management, this organization was headed for certain collapse unless something was done.  The Angels lost their Latin American presence due to scandal, had a plethora of tremendous "misses" despite multiple 1st round picks and had a team talented enough to compete, but never truly challenge for a crown.  If Dipoto had done nothing, the Angels would have been a decent squad fore two more years until free agency took Aybar, Kendrick, Morales, Weaver etc.  Payroll would've expanded but the team itself would've rot from the inside out.

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Worst team in baseball loses to the second worst team; Angels fall to the Astros, 3-1

Written by Job Ang on .

Another ho-hum game. Another terrible showing from what has become a laughing stock of a baseball team. How many more ways can a blogger write about this flaming pile of hot garbage that is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim?

Let's see. They have lost two in a row to the Astros, the purportedly worst team in all of Major League Baseball. Joe Blanton did his best to keep the team in the game. The offense decided not to show up, once again. Not a surprise.

What IS a surprise, however, is that Josh Hamilton hit a home run. No, that is not a typo. After briefly falling under the dreaded Mendoza .200 average line during the game, the beleaguered slugger launched an opposite field home run. Josh Hamilton supplied all of the Angels' offense. This is not good.

Astros 3, Angels 1

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Game Notes

-- Joe Blanton, as bad as he has been this season, is finally becoming the innings eater Jerry Dipoto signed him to be. He has delivered his third quality start in a row. Too bad the offense has decided to take its collective naptime every time this happens.

-- The Angels are now just 1 1/2 games from becoming the worst team (by record) in major league baseball. A glance at the team that has shown up in Houston this series would cause some to believe that they already are the worst team in major league baseball.

---

Halos A-Hole of the Game

This situation has become so very sad; who is there to blame in a game like this?

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Halo Headlines: Pujols having knee problems, Hamilton calm despite his deep slump

Written by Garrett Wilson on .

The May 9th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Pujols having knee problems, Hamilton calm despite his deep slump and much more...

The Story: Albert Pujols is dealing with pain in his surgically repaired knee.

The Monkey Says: The same knee that took longer than expected to recover from off-season surgery. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that this new pain is actually old pain that never really went away. It sounds like Scioscia intends to manage the issue by DHing Pujols, which he should've been doing all along thanks to his foot problems. If his production doesn't pick up, the Angels might be better of putting him on the DL to see if rest can't ease some of his ailments.


The Story: Josh Hamilton remains calm in the face of his deep slump.

The Monkey Says: Josh says he does worse when there is a sense of urgency which is amazing because it means that he can actually do worse than he is right now.


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Angels closer vents on Twitter

Written by Garrett Wilson on .

Many an Angel fan is pretty pissed off that the Angels just keep finding new ways to lose. It turns out the players aren't too pleased with it either and one of them, closer Ernesto Frieri, let his frustrations bubble over into this tweet:

Ernie. It is a pretty tame tweet, all things considered, but to see a player pop off like that after a tough loss is unusual. Players usually exercise much more discretion than to tweet out an emoitonal response to a loss less than an hour after the game ended.

Surely some will view this as some signal that Mike Scioscia has lost control of the clubhouse and thus must be fired. He might need to be fired, but not because of this. Guys should be frustrated. Guys shouldn't be having fun and there is nothing wrong with them saying so as long as that is as far as it goes. They all care that they are losing, Frieri is just the first guy to let it bleed into social media. To his credit, Frieri responded kindly and positively to everyone who replied to his tweet and followed it up with an inspirational biblical quote, so he doesn't appear angry or disgruntled. 

Keep your chin up and know that we aren't having any fun either, Ernie.


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Extension suggestion: Mark Trumbo

Written by Garrett Wilson on .

As the baseball world patiently waits for the Angels and Mike Trout to do the right thing and agree to a lengthy and borderline ridiculous contract extension, there are other concerns that need to be addressed. In this new baseball landscape, just about every single All-Star-ish caliber player signs a contract extension that buys out at least one year of free agency.

Since the Angels went and pissed off Trout's agent by low-balling him in his contract renewal, that means they'll have to move on to a lesser target. That would be one Mark Trumbo.

Trumbo is actually the ideal extension candidate. He has made one All-Star team but is hardly a lock to ever make another one. He has some obvious holes in his game that create just enough doubt in his long-term outlook that he should be very anxious to cash in while he knows he still can. As a local boy and fan favorite, the Halos should also have a similar interest in getting him locked into a long-term deal. Besides, with their farm system the Angels need to do all that they can to secure players in their prime years rather than throwing more money after aging sluggers in decline, because that has worked out so well so far.

So what would Trumbo extension look like?

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Halo Headlines: Weaver progressing, Madson could be back in a week, what would the Angels do without Scioscia?

Written by Garrett Wilson on .

The May 8th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Weaver progressing, Madson could be back in a week, what the Angels would do without Scioscia and much more...

The Story: Jered Weaver threw long toss on Tuesday and should throw off a mound for the first time this Thursday.

The Monkey Says: It sounds like Weaver is still a few weeks away, but he is at least making progress.


The Story: Ryan Madson threw a bullpen session on Tuesday and could be activated from the DL in a week.

The Monkey Says: At this point, I'm pretty sure you know the drill as far as expectations with Madson, so hoping that he could be activated in a week seems pretty foolish and maybe even like they are rushing him. I'm sure that will work out well.


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