- The Story: The Angels made a flurry of moves yesterday, including placing Brandon Wood on the DL. The Monkey Says: Wood is going on the DL with a bad case of being terrible at baseball hip flexor. He should soon begin a rehab assignment in the minors to try and get his problems at the plate figured out. Meanwhile, Maicer Izturis was activated from the DL and should be used as the primary third baseman for the next long while. Other moves included demoting Bobby Cassevah and calling up Francisco Rodriguez.
- The Story: Torii Hunter missed last night’s game to attend the high school graduation of his oldest son. The Monkey Says: The Angels didn’t end up missing him, but he should be back tonight. You have to commend him for being such a good family man and the Angels for being decent enough to allow him the day off.
- The Story: The U2 concert in Angels Stadium has been canceled due to Bono’s back surgery. The Monkey Says: But the 14-game road trip the concert forced the Angels into will not. Even worse, U2 is going to reschedule the show for next year, so the Halos might have to suffer through it again.
- The Story: Scott Kazmir’s career should be more distinguished. The Monkey Says: To be fair, that could be said for a number of pitchers in this league. The real problem for him is that injuries have robbed him of some of his velocity which will forever limit the potential of the remainder of his career.
- The Story: Erick Aybar is looking for consistency at the plate. The Monkey Says: And he is starting to find it as he has five multi-hit games in his last eight. Hopefully the return of Maicer Izturis, another viable leadoff option, will put pressure on him to keep improving.
- The Story: The 2010 Catcher Defense Rankings are not kind to the Angels. The Monkey Says: To no surprise, Mike Napoli is ranked 78th out of 79 catchers, but Jeff Mathis checks in at just 55th (though his limited number of games certainly drag him down) which only supports my notion that his defense isn’t as great as everyone says and certainly not good enough to overcome his offensive deficiencies compared to Napoli.
- The Story: Brandon Wood and Victor Rojas visited Fletcher Elementary yesterday. The Monkey Says: Isn’t that a little cruel that Wood had to go do charity and PR right before getting functionally demoted?