The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will win 92 games in 2009, and will win the division by three games.

Vladimir Guerrero will end the season with an average of  .306, and will have hit 19 home runs.

Mike Napoli will end the season with 24 home runs, 9 of them in the National League.

John Lackey will be an Angel in 2010.

The Toronto Blue Jays will win the 2009 AL Wild Card.

Brian Fuentes will lead the AL in Saves.

While all the speculation about Angels free agent signings has been focussed on Sabathia and Teixeira, does anyone else think Reagins might be planning a swoop for Rafael Furcal?

He would be an upgrade over the Admiral both on offence and defence, and would free up a useful trading chip in Izturis.

Also, judging by last year's Garland trade, Reagins likes to keep his negotiations out of the press, so lack of expressed interest would not mean much.

At the risk of prematurely jinxing the thing, I am having a great time watching the Indians v White Sox game.

As the Sox are getting thumped, and are still a half a game behind the Twins, I have deliberately tuned in to hear our old friends messrs Hawk Harrelson and DJ, and loving their abject despair and pathetic whining. Turns out it's everybody else's fault, not theirs.

Hawk, DJ, "You can stick it up your ass, YESSSSSSSSSSSSS"

http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/08/sources-eddie-guardado-dealt-to-twins.html

If only this sort of thing was prevalent a few years ago, we might have got a bag of tortilla chips for Hillenbrand (from some team that didn't much like tortilla chips)

Lo ts of wo rds re quir ed to re ach the se ven ty fi ve word mi ni mum. Ne ee ee ea rly the ee ee re.

Tommy Mendoza of Rancho Cucamonga suspended for testing positive for amphetamines.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3511317

With a name like Mendoza i'd have expected a line of coke.

Mendoza Line you see.

It's a joke, sort of.

No, I know it's not funny.

Plus, I haven't reached the 75 word limit yet, and I cannot think of anything else to say for the life of me.

Goodbye.

I have compiled a selective list of comments from the game threads of the last two games:

screw you, sosh thats crap

 

Fuck Scioscia negative two F-bombs for May now

god im so pissed right now

 

that was completely unacceptable on scioscias part, and i hope he realizes that

 

Go to hell Krod

Soth is a complete moron

 

wow, fuck you scioscia

 

YOU SON OF A BITCH, SCIOSCIA!

 

At least pretend you want to win, Mike.

how low can you go Vlad?

if we score a run today ill be pleasantly surprised

yea maybe Soth should spend more time filling out a lineup cards than questioning umps about calls they got correct.

 

OMG I'm going to kill Soth

Just to remind people, we won both games, against the division leading White Sox, who had just won their previous seven games, at their stadium, and we are now 2.5 games atop the AL West.

It's nice to have extensive cover at every position, but it's not always helpful to the club as a whole to have Major League ready talent sulking their way on the bench or at AAA, simply because they they are not quite good enough for the championship calibre team that is the LAAofA.

Is there any point keeping Morales, Rivera, and Quinlan hanging around? Or does it make sense to trade them for a specialist reliever and some young talent? Rivera particularly could easily play everyday for about ten teams, and you could make a case for adding Moseley to the list as well.

thing to bloody well work?

They made me install some microsoft plugin which gives me one video frame in ten.

Not happy.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2007/05/16/2007-05-16_jason_gets_new_shoes_and_a_ rest-1.html

I say we take that third baseman they are always booing, and three quarters of his salary.

That should get it up to three hundred characters.

No, apparently some more verbiage is necessary.

Five years ago tomorrow, I watched my first, and as yet only, live game of baseball. I had opportunities to watch a game in New York the previous year, but I decided, having followed the Angels since baseball was first broadcast live in the UK in 1996, I wanted my first game to be at Angel Stadium. A two day detour from a working vacation at the poker World Series in Las Vegas provided the opportunity.

It is unlikely that anyone there that night, apart from me, has any recollection of the game, a 7-6 victory over the Tigers. No-one hit a home run, Sele pitched like Sele, most of the runs came via the sac fly, and the most exciting event was Julio Ramirez trying to convert a triple into an inside the park home run, and being thrown out by fifteen feet.

And it's unlikely that many of the fifteen thousand people there gave the Angels (16 - 16 at the start of play) much chance of going all the way in 2002, but the rest, as they say, is history.