Angels 7, Blue Jays 4: José Soriano, Sure; Mike Trout, Obviously; But Nolan Schanuel?

 

a great photo, but as something of a glove sicko I am mostly noticing the way
Zach Neto's mitt sits above the heel of the hand, indicating
a "two fingers in the pinky" mode of glove-wearing
(try it! it changes the pocket quite pleasingly!) 

It is one thing for José Soriano—six starts into the season, zero runs allowed (an MLB first, I have heard tell)—to scatter seven hits (no walks, crucially) over five scoreless innings; the man's ERA+ (in which 100 indicates a league-average performance, adjusted for ballpark) currently stands at 1826 (it looks like I have mistakenly added a digit, but no, there are four of them). It is similarly fine for Mike Trout to have homered: he's already got eight this year, and seems poised for his first great big Mike Trout season since 2022 (though limited by injury in recent seasons, ever think about how Mike Trout had definitely secured a Hall of Fame spot by the time he was twenty-seven? I do, sometimes! it's pretty neat!). But I draw the line at Nolan Schanuel's four-RBI day; I found neither his solo home run off Lauer in the fourth nor his bases-clearing double off Fisher in the seventh agreeable in least! It's out of proportion, as Philip Larkin famously said about Nolan Schanuel's big day one time. As for the Blue Jays bats, it is a shame that a nifty three-run seventh didn't get us any further than it did. Vladdy's oh-for-four dropped his average to .337, whilst Ernie Clement's three-for-five raised his to a .320 that has sort of snuck up on me; batting average understandably isn't what it used to be, but it remains a great pleasure to see your guys at or above .300 all the same (perhaps more so, in that it has become a rarer thing). Eric Lauer, who pitched okay despite his velocity being down a titch, continues to be a bit of a weird and discordant guy: having already complained about being used behind an opener (contemporize, man!), he took to the mound Wednesday with all kinds of athletic tape (K-Tape is a brand name looking to attain Kleenex status, but, as a 3M man, I resist this) running up his neck, which John Schneider said was the first he learned that Lauer was having any physical problems at all of late. He seems like he is lightly making himself an issue? Does this risk "the vibe"? I understand remaining salty (or at least lightly salted) after losing an arbitration case (that can't be any fun at all), but your ERA remains north of sixth, my brother (let's actually check the ERA+: yikes, it's 67; -0.3 bWAR, too [I really am spending less time at FanGraphs than I ever would have anticipated]); you have been about half as good as Patrick Corbin, for example, who, by contrast, is a sled dog (or so the legends say).

Back to Toronto, then, to host the Guardians, and the rightly beloved José Ramirez (always a pleasure!), well on his way to another All-Star/Silver-Slugger/MVP-votes kind of season in a Hall of Fame career whose shape has been quite different than Mike Trout's (a model of consistency, rather than Trout's historically great early career peak), but no less assuredly rad. Each holds its place, you would think, in the divine economy. 

KS