The March 15th, 2012 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim including Pujols hits his first two homers of the spring, Santana, Trout dealing with shoulder tendinitis and much more…
The Story: The Angels lost to the White Sox, 9-7, but Albert Pujols hit his first two home runs of the spring.
The Monkey Says: Pujols has been having a great spring, as expected, but it was great to see him put on such a display. The Angels led most of the game behind his homers, but Jordan Walden got taken deep for a two-run shot before Johnny Hellweg came in to get knocked around and gave away the rest of their lead.
The Monkey Says: Santana says he is fine and that it is nothing serious, but there were reports earlier that he might miss his next scheduled start if only for precautionary reasons. Looks like he dodged a bullet.
The Monkey Says: He is going to get into games soon, though maybe not in the field. It is really hard to imagine him getting enough playing time to challenge for a roster spot, not that he was really going to be given a chance anyway.
The Story: Kendrys Morales did not run at all yesterday but did work in some other activities.
The Monkey Says: The team continues to treat him carefully out of fear of him pulling a muscle or something, so it isn’t clear when he will return to live action, but I am guessing it won’t be before this weekend.
The Story: Fangraphs rates the Angels starting rotation #1 in their positional power rankings.
The Monkey Says: The Philly fans are going to be pissed, but I think a lot of this ranking has to do with Vance Worley mostly being suspected of wildly overachieving last season for the Phillies.
The Story: Vernon Wells will be better in 2012.
The Monkey Says: But he didn’t say by how much. Gotcha! Sadly, this might be the last time I get to link to Sam Miller as he is leaving the OC Register at the end of the week and moving on to Baseball Prospectus full-time, so he won’t have to pretend to care about the Angels anymore. Congrats and good luck, Sam.
The Story: Dan Haren is quietly having a tremendous peak of his career.
The Monkey Says: Shh! Don’t tell him, we need him to sign an under-market value extension soon.