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.

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:

This is not fun anymore!

— ernesto frieri (@ernasty49) May 8, 2013

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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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?

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.

When CJ Wilson unraveled during his trademark one-inning stink fest, one couldn't help but have a sinking feeling about this Angels season. While many fans have already jumped ship, the national news has begun to really converge upon the Halos like sharks around a near-dead whale carcass. The Angels aren't simply bad anymore. They are absolutely, unmitigatedly, no-doubt-about-it awful, horrendous, and terrible.

Wilson's personal catcher, Hank Conger, has continued to look awful on the field. A game after Congnam Styling it up the first base line, he committed three, that's right, three errors. A couple of them contributed to four unearned runs charged against Wilson. But the third one, a crucial seventh inning throw down to third base, looked like it resulted from J.D. Martinez's batter interference. How the umpire's didn't catch it is beyond this Angels blogger.

Side note #1: The Astros are so bad, they don't even know when to duck when the opposing catcher is trying to make a throw.

Side Note #2: Replays show that his helmet clearly gets knocked off by Conger's throw, which should have automatically resulted in an out.

Let's face it, folks. The Angels just aren't a very good team. They can't even beat the Houston Astros.

Astros 7, Angels 6

Game Notes

-- The Angels are terrible

-- Mark Lowe, in his return from the disable list, wasn't so terrible. The pitcher delivered a solid 1 2/3 innings of shutout work, and lowered his ERA to a sparkling 9.00. Oy.

-- The Angels are now only 2 1/2 games ahead of the worst team in baseball. When is Spring Training over?

Halos A-Hole of the Game

Would have to give it to Conger. Without his sloppy play behind the plate, Wilson would've delivered yet another scary-but-good start to win it.

In one of the more ironic twists of fate in recent memory for Mike Scioscia's tenure with the Angels, it appears he might have himself a catcher defense dilemma. We all remember far too well the bad old days of Scioscia being too blinded by his personal defensive biases to see that Mike Napoli should be the starting catcher and Jeff Mathis should be manning a radio tower in Alaska. Now, it seems, the tables have turned and Scioscia has a real conundrum on his hands.

It was well-documented coming into the season that the Angels were so worried about Hank Conger's defense that they made a trade for Chris Snyder as an insurance policy. So very worried. Hank was able to quiet those concerns and earn a spot on the Opening Day roster as the back-up catcher. But now it looks like his defense has advanced to a point where he might very well deserve a promotion up the depth chart.

Through the first month of the season, the defensive metrics strongly suggest that Mike Scioscia is, GASP!, starting an inferior defensive catcher in order to get better offense from the position. I'll allow you a moment to look out the window to make sure the sky hasn't turned red or that your dog and cat aren't enjoying a little afternoon delight together.

Seriously though, it is true and I can prove it, with the obvious caveat that we are dealing with a relatively small sample size.

The May 7th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Scioscia has no plans to quit, Lowe activated, Brasier demoted and much more...

The Story: Mike Scioscia has no plans to quit.

The Monkey Says: I don't blame him. That isn't how he operates. I still think that letting him go is the only way to salvage the season though, so I guess Dipoto and Moreno will have to be the ones to do the dirty deed.

The Story: The Angels activated Mark Lowe from the DL and sent Ryan Brasier back to Triple-A.

The Monkey Says: Lowe probably won't help much, but he is still better than Brasier. Every little bit helps, I guess.