The September 11th, 2014 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Hamilton receives more cortisone shots for shoulder, Ebel a candidate to manage Astros and much more…
The Story: Josh Hamilton received two more cortisone shots after testing out his ailing shoulder.
The Monkey Says: That means he will be out another few days. He said that he was “dying” in reference to the pain in his shoulder. So, that’s probably not good. He will get an MRI on Friday if he doesn’t improve. One thing worth noting is that it seems to bother him more in the field, so he could potentially just DH if he doesn’t get fully healthy.
The Story: Dino Ebel is considered a candidate for the managerial opening in Houston.
The Monkey Says: As is former Angels Bengie Molina, who is also expected to be in the running for the Rangers gig. Even if Ebel doesn’t go to Houston, it is pretty clear that he is likely to draw interest elsewhere this offseason and going forward.
The Story: Huston Street has been nursing a sore hamstring since his last appearance.
The Monkey Says: They haven’t needed him, so it hadn’t made the news until now. He apparently suffered the injury covering first base. Between him and Richards, I think the Halos should tell their pitchers to stop covering first until the post-season starts, just to be safe.
The Story: Mike Morin was glad Scioscia gave him a stern lecture on the mound Tuesday night.
The Monkey Says: Morin has been a bit off the last few weeks and apparently Scioscia had seen enough and laid into the kid a bit (apparently, I didn’t see it as I was in Vegas the last two days and apparently Angels games are blacked out there). Getting Morin back on track before the post-season would be nice since he had been Scioscia’s go-to mid-inning escape artist until recently.
The Story: How did the Angels get so good?
The Monkey Says: Not to be smug about it, but the team should be this good. The bigger explanation is really about how they got so bad last season. Other than Richards and Shoemaker, nobody has really overachieved by that much this year and that is partly canceled out by Richards getting hurt and C.J. Wilson mostly being terrible. One thing this piece doesn’t really mention though is the bullpen. The number of games the Angels bullpen gave away the last three years is significant, but they turned that steaming pile of dog crap into legitimately one of the best bullpens in the league over the last three months. That is probably what pushed this from a pretty solid team to a great one.
The Story: A look at how often and how effective each team has used the infield shift.
The Monkey Says: The Angels are towards the lower end of using the shift, but the real takeaway here is that the strategy isn’t wildly effective. Or so it appears. I’d be more interested in seeing the net total broken out into how many times it did work and how many times it didn’t. The Angels are +13, but there is a big difference if that means it saved a hit 17 times but allowed a hit four times against if it saved 53 hits but allowed 40.
The Story: Mike Trout became the sixth player in history to have three 100+ run seasons by the age of 23.
The Monkey Says: Blah. Blah. Blah. Mike Trout made history. Business as usual.
The Story: The band Puig Destroyer has released a new song in praise of Mike Trout.
The Monkey Says: I think. I can’t really understand the lyrics. I’m just assuming they are praising Trout because I don’t know how one could do anything other than praise him.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
