The April 9th, 2012 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim including Mark Trumbo is already concerned with his defense at third base, Mike Scioscia is not worried about all the baserunning blunders, early signs suggest the Angels lineup might have a soft spot behind Pujols and much more…
The Story: Mark Trumbo is already concerned with his own play at third base.
The Monkey Says: Judging from Mark’s comments, his confidence is shaken and that could be a big problem. If he starts getting in his own head about his play at third base, they are going to have to pull the plug pretty quickly. I’m still not ready to declare this experiment a failure, though many outsiders already seem to be, but it might do Mark some good to take a few days off from game action before heading back out there, just to settle his nerves.
The Monkey Says: He is correct not to be. The Angels offense is built on aggressive baserunning and sometimes it backfires and it just looks bad when so many mistakes happen in a short span of time. That being said, some of the mistakes have been just plain dumb.
The Story: Early indications suggest the Angels lineup has a soft spot behind Albert Pujols.
The Monkey Says: This is straight from the early overreaction file. The lineup in general is not hitting, so let’s not go blaming certain players just yet. Three games tells us virtually nothing.
The Monkey Says: Both pitchers were fine in their first start and there is little reason to believe that Williams won’t win the job. With him being out of options, even a disastrous performance might not deter the Angels from giving him the nod. I continue to not understand why the Angels are pretending like this is still an open competition.
The Story: The Angels don’t even need Albert Pujols to be considered a playoff team.
The Monkey Says: Wow, then the Royals must be AWESOME.
The Monkey Says: I’ll save you the dirty details, but Dan Lozano has a rep for ample use of drugs, hookers and pornstars, which is not exactly in line with Albert’s devout lifestyle. However, Lozano is also known to be quite the chameleon who many believe has duped the Pujols family into believing he too is a pious man of faith. This really isn’t a story.
The Story: Kendrys Morales gets his long awaited comeback.
The Monkey Says: Nothing you haven’t read before, but I’ll be damned if I ever get tired of what is quickly becoming the feelgood story of the year.
The Story: Mike Scioscia is ready for the pressure of high expectations.
The Monkey Says: Is there really that much extra “heat” or that much bigger of a “spotlight” on him? The Angels have been World Series hopefuls almost every year since 2002. This year really isn’t that much different and having Pujols around isn’t really going to change things that much from pressure perspective. There might be a few more national media members paying attention now, but it isn’t like Sosh will suddenly be doing all his press conferences with twice the number of reporters with five times the lack of patience for any struggles.
The Story: Victor Rojas discusses his path to his “dream job.”
The Monkey Says: Rojas wants to retire as the Angels announcer. I know he has only been on the job for a few years, but I think I’d be OK with that.
The Story: Taylor Lindsey’s assignment to High-A Inland Empire was a bit of a surprise.
The Monkey Says: The new Angel regime actually seems to be promoting guys pretty aggressively thus far, so I’m not sure this is unique to Lindsay, though he certainly deserves it.