This question popped into my head while watching the Celebrity and Legends Softball Game last night.

Can a pitcher get a win and a save in the same game?

Let's say Jered Weaver starts a game and pitches the first 7 innings of a game. During those 7 innings, the Angels take a 3 - 0 lead. In the 8th inning the opposing team has 3 left handed hitters that will not get pinch hit for. Scioscia brings in Fuentes to face them. But Weaver has pitched so well, he puts Weaver out in Left Field for the 8th inning. Fuentes get throught the 8th inning 1, 2, 3. Scioscia then reinserts Weaver back as pitcher for the 9th inning, which he gets through and seals the win for the Angels.

I know Weaver is allowed to pitch again as long as he doen't leave the game. I remember Davey Johnson doing this with the Mets in '86 against the Astros with Roger McDowell and Jesse Orosco during the NLCS.

Does he get credit for both the win and the save? Or only for the win.

A comment by the Rev during the Game Thread asking about what happened to the Complete Game, got me thinking, and I did a little research into the Complete Games thrown by Angels Pitchers during the Mike Scioscia Era

The first thing I noticed is that the Angels have been pretty consistent over the last 10 years in terms of the number of CG's each year. There have been 58 CG's over that time.

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While I was watching the bottom of the 9th yesterday, I was looking at the score, and saw it change a couple of time during the inning. First it changed to 7 - 7, then it changed to 7 - 6 with Boston leading before changing back to the correct score. Maybe someone in the TBS production truck was hoping if they changed the score on the screen it would change the outcome of the game?

Did anybody else notice this?

I was pondering recently what would be the best result of the Wild Card Race, as it pertains to the Angels chances for advancing in the playoffs to get to the World Series.

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I was reading AngelKeith's fan post about what other teams do you root for besides the Angels, and it got me wondering, do people still root for teams the way that they used to, or do people root more for specific playes. Before the advent of free agency, you knew players were going to be on the same team for their career unless they were traded. You knew Mickey Mantle was going to be a Yankee for his entire career, and Stan Musial was going to be a Cardinal.

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Monkeyspanked's Fanpost about bringing Brandon Wood up got me thinking.

What type of lineup does everybody want to see? With rotation weakened due to the injuries of Lackey, Santana and Escobar, would you rather put a more offensive lineup out  there (sacrificing some defense) going with the thinking that we need to try and outscore everybody,or would you rather put a more defensive lineup out there, (sacrificing some offense) trying to limit the # of runs the other teams score.

Will your thinking change when the 3 injured stsarters return? Does your thinking change from pitcher to pitcher

My lineups would probably look something like this:

Offense inclined lineup

Figgins - 3b

Kendrick - 2b

Abreu - RF

Guerrero - DH

Hunter - CF

Rivera - LF

Napoli - C

Morales - 1b

Wood  - ss

Defense Inclined Lineup

Figgins - 3b

Kendrick - 2b

Hunter - CF

Guerrero - DH

Morales - 1b

Matthews - RF

Mathis - C

Aybar - ss

Willits - LF

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I had the pleasure of going to see the Angels play the Phillies last night. This first photo is the view of the stadium from my seat. we had seats in the Hall of Fame Club section #221 Row 1. Great Seats!

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Unfortunately, due to traffic, I missed the top of the first and Guerrero's Home Run. This is a picture from Vlad's next at bat.

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Santana had it going on last night. He was dealing. Struck out the side in the 4th, and made it look easy. I have to say I was worried before the game that Utley was going to bust out of his slump against Santana, but it turns out I was worried for nothing.

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Here is the scoreboard during the bottom of the ninth inning. I am glad that I took the picture when I did, because the cleared it off right after the game was over.

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Here is a picture of me after the game basking in the glow of another Halo Victory.

When we were walking out of our seats we walked up past the Broadcast booths, and Hudler saw me in my Angels shirt and gave me a thumbs up as I walked by.

Overall, this is very nice stadium, and I hope to make it back, and get there early enough to be able to walk around the stadium and take it all in

As soon as I have my photos in an album, i will put in a link to all of my picture from the game.

I was thinking about trivia questions, and decided I would post the following trivia question for your perusal.

Name the only player in Major League history to have at least 500 hits with 4 different teams.

And for a bonus question, name the player who ended his career a combined 7 hits away from being the 2nd to accomplish the feat. This player is 4 hits shy with one team, and 3 hits shy with a second team.

I know posting a trivia question in a format like this allows everybody to research it before they give an answer, but I would hope that everyone will try and think of the answer, before they go and look it up.

Since it 1 1/2 hours till game time and no one has put up a pregame guess thread, I will.

We are going old school, with a chance at 4 possible points.

Pick the runs & hits for both teams, Angels first, then the Blue Jays

I believe only one person has gotten a perfect score in this format.

Make your picks now, and see how you fare against your fellow HH brethren.

Go Angels!

The Angels have a record of 8-2-2 in series so far this year. And they have gone 6-0-2 in the last 8 series after losing 2-2 in the first 4 series of the year. If we just keep winning series the rest of the year, i.e. winning 2 of 3 for the rest of the year, we will wind up with 106 wins. While it may be a stretch to say we will win that many games, I feel that we should be able to win around 95-100, especially with Lackey coming back shortly, and getting Kendrick healthy and back in the lineup.

What are your thoughts about how many games the Angels will win

Some of you may remembver that our beloved Rev. Halofan is currently competing in a Strat-O-Matic replay of the 1986 season that is being run over at SportingNews.com. The regular season is winding down, and the Angels have about 16 games left. We currently sit  in 1st place with a 7.5 game lead. So I believe it is fair to say that we will be winning the division.

Now, who will we be playing in the playoffs? That has not been decided yet. The Tigers currently sit in first place with a 1 game lead over the Yankees and a 3 game lead over the Blue Jays. 

Who should we hope to play? Here are our records againt each of the 3:

Tigers 7-5

Blue Jays 7-5

Yankees 4-8

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Here is the link to the story here for your reading pleasure

I think he has the teams list alphabetically, and not how he thinks they will finish, because he makes no mention of how he thinks they will finish.

This article mentions Vlad, but talks about his failure in the post season.

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Mike & Mike on ESPN radio were talking a lot about the possibility of the Twins trading Johan Santana this offseason. So I am asking you my fellow Halos Heaven brethren, if you would be interested in trading to get Santana, who would you give up to get him, and how much would signing him to an extension affect play in your willingness to go after him.

Also, would you rather have Johan, or A-rod, assuming that you can only get one of them.

I would trade Ervin Santana, Reggie Willits, and one or two minor leaguers for Johan Santana.

Also, if you can get them both, get them both.

I was listening to Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio this morning, when they brought up an article in Business Week about the 100 Most Influential people in sports. I went to the website and viewed the whole list, and found that the owner of our team is on the list at #91. Running down the list, I believe he is #12 or 13 among owners, and that is counting the Owners of some auto racing teams.

I've been reading a lot on this site about the east coast bias, and how the Angels get no respect from the National Media, especially ESPN.

You know what, give it a rest.

There is a reason why the national media puts a majority of its focus on east coast teams.

47% of the  population of this country lives in the Eastern Time Zone.

So is it any wonder that the national media puts there focus on the east coast. Part of the problem of put the focus of the bias on ESPN is that ESPN does not have seperate feeds for east coast and west coast(due to the nature of the programming). Most networks will broadcast their shows at the same time on both the east and west coasts(The Simpsons airs at 8pm on both coasts).

Also, take a look at the ESPN and Foxsports power rankings for MLB. The Angels are 2nd on both rankings. They are not biased against because they are a west coast team, they are rated the second best team in baseball, most likely because they have the second best record in baseball, and they have had the second best record for most of the season.

So relax with all this east coast bias talk, and let's enjoy the rest of the baseball season and look forward to what all of here hope will be a very successful postseason.

One final note - If there is such an east coast bias, how did I become such an Angels fan living in New Jersey my whole life in an era before ESPN and the internet. I know I saw them play before the playoffs in '79, because I was alredy a fan by the time the playoff started.

I am watching Baseball Tonight, and they were just saying that if  A Rod hits a home run in the completion of the suspended game with Balt. that the one he hit tonight will be considered his 500th, because the suspended game will counted be as a game from June. He is scheduled to have a plate appearance in the suspended game.

This situation has probably never come up before with a player approaching a milestone.

I just found this interesting, and decided to make a post about it.