The June 17th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Scioscia to keep Hamilton in two-hole, the Dodgers cost the Angels TV revenue and much more…
The Story: Joe Blanton will return to the rotation on Tuesday.
The Monkey Says: Which you probably figured out after Jerome Williams threw three innings of relief on Sunday. This is absolutely the wrong move, but at least Scioscia seems to be inching closer and closer to finally pulling the plug on Blanton. Then again, he is only setup for success facing a lineup like Seattle, which was probably the whole point of pushing back his turn in the rotation.
The Story: The Dodgers ended up costing the Angels potentially billions of dollars in their TV contract.
The Monkey Says: Frank McCourt cut a sweetheart deal with Fox so he could try and use the money to pay his own personal debts. The league didn't allow it, but the Angels used that contract as a model for their own deal with Fox Sports. Had Moreno known how much the Dodgers would've ended up getting, he might've been able to get more, but I doubt he would have matched the deal. The impulse here is to blame McCourt for artificially lowering the value of TV contracts at the time, but it seems to me that the fault here lies more with the Angels for not reading the tea leaves properly. Not that they got a bad deal, but it would've been nice to get even more money.
The Story: Mike Trout is holding steady at second in the AL oufielder All-Star voting.
The Monkey Says: He is also holding steady as the only Angel with a chance of getting voted in. Howie Kendrick is having a monster season and still can't crack the top five at his position. He'll surely get picked as a reserve, but it goes to show just how stupid the All-Star balloting process really is.
The Story: Mike Scioscia intends to stick the lineup arrangement that has Josh Hamilton in the two-hole.
The Monkey Says: The move has done nothing to jump start Hamilton, but even Sosh knows that one week is too small of a sample to make any real judgment. What I would like Scioscia to at least consider is not having Hamilton bat second against a lefty. Perhaps that will be the case given that Scioscia had a last minute change of heart yesterday when he pulled Josh from the lineup against a tough southpaw.
The Story: A look at the Albert Pujols vs. Mariano Rivera matchup from Sunday.
The Monkey Says: Wow, it is almost like Rivera is the greatest relief pitcher of all-time for a reason or something.
The Story: The Angels signed right-handed reliever Mike Ekstrom to a minor league deal.
The Monkey Says: I'm done considering these throwaway signings. With De La Rosa and Coello, Dipoto has demonstrated a knack for finding command challenged relievers that can miss bats like Ekstrom and turning them into somewhat viable big leaguers. That doesn't mean we should expect anything from Ekstrom, just that we should at least keep an eye on him.
The Story: The Angels signed left-handed reliever Dustin Richardson to a minor league deal.
The Monkey Says: Same as above only Richardson is coming off a PED suspension. I don't know if that makes any kind of a difference in the assessment, just that it something to know about him.
The Story: An idiot fan tried to climb on the Angels Post-Game Live set, only to fail spectacularly.
The Monkey Says: C'mon, people, we're better than that. Stop acting like Dodgers fans.
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