Halo Headlines: concern over Hamilton’s lack of power grows, Green to DL, Cron recalled

The July 24th, 2014 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including concern over Hamilton’s lack of power grows, Green to DL, Cron recalled and much more…

The Story: Concern is growing over Josh Hamilton’s homerless streak.
The Monkey Says: He has just a .141 ISO this year, so even if you call the homerless streak a fluke, it isn’t as if he has smacking double all over to compensate.

The Story: Josh Hamilton has been playing through “tightness” in his legs.
The Monkey Says: Ah, the classic “non-excuse” excuse. This is a Scioscia classic as he makes it clear that he doesn’t think the leg problems are the cause of his power outage, but he also puts the information out there so we can all make our own inferences into whether or not it might be the culprit in spite of the denial from Scioscia.

The Story: Grant Green was placed on the DL with a back strain and C.J. Cron was recalled to take his roster spot.
The Monkey Says: My favorite part is that the team went out of their way to make it clear that he didn’t get hurt in the walk-off celebration on Sunday, an historic issue for the Angels. This allows Cron to get called back up a little early, but it looks like he came back to platoon with Efren Navarro.

The Story: Mike Trout hasn’t been stealing due to increased attention from pitchers and their use of the slide-step.
The Monkey Says: They want him to steal, but they don’t want him to run on pitchers who are going out of their way to be quick to home. It feels like there should be some sort of happy medium there because ALL pitchers can’t be that fast to home, but it isn’t as if the Angels are normally conservative in the baserunning department, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

The Story: Teams pursuing the second Wild Card in the AL should think twice about giving up lots of assets at the trade deadline.
The Monkey Says: The reasoning is that whoever wins the second Wild Card is basically just going to run into the Angels’ buzzsaw, so it isn’t worth selling the farm just so you can have the right to lose to the Halos or A’s in the one-game playoff.

The Story: Mike Trout is the Angels’ “Heart & Hustle” recipient.
The Monkey Says: Also known as the “gritty white guy” award. Trout definitely checks both boxes.