Tag: Los Angeles Angels

Angels fans might try the Trea Turner treatment to get Anthony Rendon out of an 0-for-19 start

Could this help Anthony Rendon? It worked for Trea Turner!

It’s been about a month since Anthony Rendon dropped this memorable quote: “[Baseball has] never been a top priority for me. This is a job. I do this to make a living. My faith, my family come first before this job. So if those things come before it, I’m leaving.”

Since then, in the 2024 regular season, he’s gone a whopping 0-for-19 to start the year. It’s not great, to say the least, given that he signed a $245 million contract over seven years with the Los Angeles Angels back in 2020 and he hasn’t done much.

So what do you do if you’re an Angels fan and the home opener is coming up? You pull the Trea Turner treatment! With the shortstop struggling last year, Phillies fans gave him a standing ovation and he turned it around!

We’ll see if it works!

Mike Trout slammed a 473-foot homer out of the Marlins ballpark

Mike Trout is unreal.

Los Angeles Lakers star outfielder Mike Trout rarely disappoints at the plate, and he smacked the seams off the baseball during his team’s Monday tilt against the Miami Marlins.

On a pitch from Marlins ace George Soriano, Trout hit a startling 473-foot homer all the way out of the Miami ballpark.

It was an equalizing home run, one that showed just how powerful Trout is on his swing when he’s at the plate. When a player as talented as Trout steps up to bat, there’s only so much you can do.

This gigantic homer is further proof of why Trout is one of the MLB’s elite talents.

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Angels assign Ben Joyce to minor league ahead of opening day

The Angels assign former Tennessee pitcher Ben Joyce to the minor league ahead of opening day.

Opening day in Major League Baseball is taking place on Thursday for the Angels.

Baltimore will host Los Angeles on Thursday at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland. First pitch is slated for 3:05 p.m. EDT.

Ahead of opening day, the Angels assigned former Tennessee pitcher Ben Joyce to the Rocket City Trash Pandas. The Trash Pandas compete in the Southern League and are a Double-A affiliate of Los Angeles.

Joyce was selected by the Angels in the third round (No. 89 overall) of the 2022 Major League Baseball draft.

He appeared in 27 games and started one contest in his final season at Tennessee in 2022.

Joyce had a 2-1 record, while totaling 53 strikeouts in 32.1 innings pitched during the 2022 campaign.

Tennessee won the Southeastern Conference East division for the second consecutive season, the league regular season and tournament championships in 2022.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

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Ben Joyce records strikeout against Padres

Former Vol Ben Joyce records strikeout against the Padres.

Los Angeles defeated San Diego, 5-3, on Friday in spring training.

The contest took place at Peoria Stadium in Peoria, Arizona.

Former Vol Ben Joyce pitched one inning for the Angles. He recorded one strikeout, while allowing two hits, two walks and one earned run.

Joyce was selected by the Angels in the third-round (No. 89 overall) of the 2022 Major League Baseball draft.

He played for the Vols from 2021-22. The former Vol did not play in 2021 due to rehabbing from offseason surgery.

Joyce (2-1) appeared in 27 games and started one contest in 2022 for Tennessee. He totaled 53 strikeouts in 32.1 innings pitched during the 2022 campaign.

Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

MLB fans crushed Anthony Rendon for saying that baseball has never been a top priority for him

He really hates baseball.

When you look for some of the worst contracts in MLB, it’s difficult to find anything that tops what the Angels handed Anthony Rendon in 2020. In an effort to build around Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, the Angels signed Rendon to a seven-year deal worth $245 million. Since then, Rendon has yet to play 60 games in a single season and rarely made an impact when he did play.

And his comments at Monday’s spring training camp can’t make the Angels feel any better about the disastrous contract.

Speaking to reporters, Rendon was asked about how he considered retirement last year. And that was when he said that his priorities had changed. When asked in a follow-up question where baseball fell in that list of priorities, Rendon admitted that baseball had never been a top priority for him.

While it’s totally fine to prioritize family over a job, it’s not a good look for a player making $38 million to broadcast that his job isn’t among his top priorities. When you take into account Rendon’s lack of availability during his time with the Angels, his 2024 spring camp couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start.

MLB fans weren’t thrilled with Rendon’s answer as well.

MLB fans had so many feelings about Shohei Ohtani’s stunning deal with the Dodgers

Shohei Ohtani is going to be a Dodger!

Holy baseball, Batman. Shohei Ohtani is staying in southern California but as a Los Angeles Dodger.

The former Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers have struck a deal, Ohtani announced Saturday on his Instagram page. The move has been speculated about all off-season, and according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, it’s a 10-year, $700 million deal.

A lot of effort was put into figuring out where Shohei was signing after the star made it known that he would take it personally if any team leaked that they met with him. That decision led some dedicated folks to track the whereabouts of a plane he might have been on — turns out, he wasn’t — for any small details that might indicate his new home.

It also led to J.J. Watt calling out the media for complaining about how secretive the whole thing was. (Yeah, the baseball world was down BAD.)

But MLB fans finally have their answer after weeks of unrest:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0pR_vyvLpR/?igshid=MzY1NDJmNzMyNQ%3D%3D

In his Instagram caption, Ohtani wrote:

To all the fans and everyone involved in the baseball world, I apologize for taking so long to come to a decision. I have decided to choose the Dodgers as my next team.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone involved with the Angels organization and the fans who have supported me over the past six years, as well as to everyone involved with each team that was part of this negotiation process. Especially to the Angels fans who supported me through all the ups and downs, your guys’ support and cheer meant the world to me. The six years I spent with the Angels will remain etched in my heart forever.

And to all Dodgers fans, I pledge to always do what’s best for the team and always continue to give it my all to be the best version of myself. Until the last day of my playing career, I want to continue to strive forward not only for the Dodgers but for the baseball world.

There are some things that cannot be conveyed in writing, so I would like to talk more about this again at a later press conference.

Thank you very much

MLB fans thought Shohei Ohtani’s dog was the real star of his American League MVP announcement

The puppy really won MVP.

The American League MVP award was announced on Thursday, and really, there was never much suspense over who was winning the honor. Two-way superstar and unrestricted free agent Shohei Ohtani won his second AL MVP in three years. He’s the first player to win MVP unanimously twice.

But the true star of the announcement wasn’t even Ohtani. No, it was his dog who joined him on the couch for the live interview with MLB Network.

I mean, look at this dog!

Sure, Ohtani hit 44 home runs AND posted a 3.14 ERA this season. That’s superhuman stuff, yeah. He’s going to get paid half a billion this offseason — we know. But THAT dog is adorable. We should be talking about that puppy.

Needless to say, MLB fans were thrilled that the dog joined Ohtani on the telecast. Baseball is in good hands.

MLB fans ripped Stephen A. Smith on his ridiculous take that Shohei Ohtani isn’t worth $500M

Stephen A. Smith is very off on this MLB take about Shohei Ohtani’s pending free agency windfall.

ESPN’s sports debate captain Stephen A. Smith is never one to shy away from a hot take, but his rant against MLB superstar Shohei Ohtani getting paid feels like it’s pushing it by even his own standards.

On a new edition of First Take, Smith argued that no MLB team should pay Ohtani a $500 million contract for a litany of reasons.

While Smith brings up a fair point about Ohtani’s injury that could sideline him from pitching until 2025, he also brings in a bunch of silly reasons for not giving the MLB’s best player a payday.

Those include the Angels being bad with Ohtani there, other teams are good that haven’t paid a superstar like Ohtani such a large salary, changing baseball rules and that people didn’t show up to Angels games because they were bad.

Wh— what?

While Smith as an MLB general manager might not give Ohtani a half a billion dollars, there will be no shortage of teams who will do what is necessary to get one of the best baseball players of all time on their roster.

While it’s fine to not have clarity on Ohtani’s future health, trying to argue that he’s not worth the biggest salary in baseball doesn’t really work past this injury. If he could actually get on a good team, Ohtani’s electric play even as a hitter could boost them to immediate World Series contenders.

Once he gets back to pitching? He’d be worth every single penny you’d pay him and more.

MLB fans loved watching Shohei Ohtani coach Angels teammate Zach Neto in the dugout

What can’t he do?

The Los Angeles Angels took a major risk around the trade deadline, opting to keep Shohei Ohtani ahead of his free agency for a run at the American League wild card. That plan has seen the Angels fall entirely out of contention, and Ohtani’s season came to an end after separate UCL and oblique injuries.

Now, Ohtani could have easily checked out and left the team amid the tough injury news. After all, he’s likely played his last game with the Angels. But that wasn’t what we saw on Sunday from Ohtani.

He evidently had different plans … becoming an extra coach for the Angels.

During the Angels’ 5-3 loss to the Tigers, cameras captured footage of Ohtani walking through hitting mechanics with Zach Neto. It was a rough game for Neto, but Ohtani was there to pick up his teammate and help him through a brutal 2-for-36 slump.

Fans loved seeing that from Ohtani. Plus, bonus points for the water bottle tap on the bat boy’s helmet. He truly does it all.