The April 30th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Aybar starts rehab assignment, Bourjos and Jimenez both suffer injuries and much more…
The Story: Erick Aybar began a rehab assignment at Triple-A Salt Lake last night.
The Monkey Says: It could be a short assignment, but probably a few games since they went through the trouble of sending him to Utah rather than keeping local with the 66ers. There are also reports that Callaspo will begin a similar assignment tomorrow with Inland Empire. Hopefully both will be back no later than this weekend.
The Story: Both Peter Bourjos (hamstring) and Luis Jimenez (shin) left last night's Angel game due to injury.
The Monkey Says: The hits just keep on coming. The Angels are so banged up that John Hester and Travis Witherspoon are the only position players in the minors on the 40-man roster who aren't on the DL. Perhaps the Angels will skip sending Callaspo to rehab and have him come back to play assuming Lucho can't go. As for Bourjos, he seems certain to miss at least a few days and probably go on the DL. He will be much tougher to replace, though it figures to be J.B. Shuck in the short-term. Ideally they would promote Kole Calhoun, but he broke his hand. Bill Hall or Brad Hawpe might somehow work there way into the mix. I kind of wonder if the Angels might not be better off calling up C.J. Cron to DH if it appears Bourjos will miss significant time.
The Story: The ugly significance of the Angels' poor record.
The Monkey Says: The Angels started like this last season and ended up with 89 wins which is good enough for a post-season berth almost every year. The problem is that it isn't clear if this current roster is as good as the 2012 roster. Many of their struggles last season were seen as anomalies but the rotation issues this year were known problems they thought they could overcome and thus far haven't.
The Story: Mike Trout's slow start provides insight into his more normal peripheral rates.
The Monkey Says: A lot of these are the rates that many people cited as reasons for projecting a mild sophomore slump for Trout. One additional rate that the article did not mention was that Trout is now seeing only 59% fastballs after getting 65% last year. At the least, it suggests that pitchers are working Trout differently than in 2012. Given his famed ability to adjust, it should only be a matter of time before he starts boosting his numbers again.
The Story: Bryce Harper is closing the gap on Mike Trout.
The Monkey Says: I still don't get why everyone thinks they are in direct competition, but whatever.
The Story: This week in Albert Pujols playing through pain.
The Monkey Says: And yet Scioscia keeps letting him play the field. I don't get it.
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