No Frownland here…

The Angels broke out the disco ball in the clubhouse, and why not? That was quite a party.

Mike Trout, the guest of honor, became the youngest player in American League history to hit for the cycle. Josh Hamilton, the birthday boy, enjoyed two rounds of serenades from the crowd. The Angels posted their most lopsided victory of the season, a 12-0 rout of the Seattle Mariners.

The fans even went home with party favors — Mike Trout pint glasses, in honor of a player of ...

Wonder if Paul Anka can pen another hit after this nosedive…

But the thing that was most striking about Pujols is that he was always exactly as good as he had been the year before. He never had a bad year. He never had anything RESEMBLING a bad year. They called him “The Machine.” If you take the WORST statistical totals he had those first 10 years – that is, the lowest batting average he had over those 10 years, the fewest home runs he hit, etc.—you STILL come up with this season:

.312 ...

Otolaryngology has another O-4 in it.

Josh Hamilton said he was assured by doctors this week that the allergies that lead to occasional sinus and throat discomfort and dizziness were not caused or exacerbated by his heavy cocaine use from 2002-2005.

“You have a hallway up the middle of your nose and sinus cavities on each side,” said Hamilton, whose addiction to drugs and alcohol led to a ban from baseball from 2003-2005. “When you breathe air, it goes up and down the hallway.

“Same thing ...

So that’s what Bonsignore means.

Scioscia has been in Anaheim for 14 years and won a World Series title and five division championships.

But everything has a shelf life, and as he oversees yet another season of Angels underachievement, it’s probably only a matter of time before Moreno decides it’s time to bring in a new manager.

But don’t mistake a change in the dugout with heaping all the blame on one person.

It’s not Scioscia’s fault the Angels drastically downgraded their pitching staff. ...

Josh Hamilton said he has changed sinus medication and is scheduled to be tested for allergies, but he wanted to make one thing about his weakened condition perfectly clear.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with my .200 batting average,” he said.

The Angels limited Hamilton to designated hitter Tuesday, one day after the right fielder came out of a game with what Manager Mike Scioscia called dizziness. Hamilton said he has had sinus and throat discomfort for about 10 days and said he ...

Ozzmosis: New L.A. tomorrow?

Guillen is an excellent manager. His teams consistently win more games than their talent level suggests they should (plus-19 in Pythagorean standings over his eight years with the White Sox). It’s easy to picture him getting a bump out of the Dodgers or Angels, should changes be made.

But will he get a chance?

Restoring his reputation will be a huge battle for Guillen. He might not be ready to get back in the dugout if the information I got Friday was correct.

...

As Alfred, Lord (The Human Eyeball) Tennyson once said about smile splits…“A smile abroad is often a scowl at home.”

Dwight Howard, meet Josh Hamilton.

“I’ve had people screaming at me when I’m at the plate, ‘Wipe that smile off your face,’‘’ said the Angels bust. “If I’m not smiling, you don’t want me out there. I want to play the game how I’ve grown up my whole life playing it, and that’s with a smile. You do your best when you’re relaxed.’‘

Hamilton gets any more relaxed and he really ...

[Angels’] Manager Mike Scoscia argued Astros skipper Bo Porter wasn’t allowed to make two pitching changes before the first reliever fired an official pitch.

However, since the Angels came back to win, 6-5, the protest is essentially a non-factor. [...] Rule 3.05(b) states: If the pitcher is replaced, the substitute pitcher shall pitch to the batter then at-bat, or any substitute batter, until such batter is put out or reaches first base, or until the offensive team is put out, unless the ...

So enough with the Manager Schettino jokes!

With the Angels tying their worst start in franchise history—an 11-20 record matching the futility of their 1961 inaugural season—manager Mike Scioscia’s future with the club has come into question.

A fired-up Scioscia wants to make it clear—he’s not interested in bailing out.

“I’ve never quit, given up or anything else like that in my career,” the Halos’ manager said after an 8-4 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday. “I’m certainly not going to ...

Josh Hamilton’s first month as a Los Angeles Angel was a well-documented disaster. The slugger, who signed a five-year, $125 million deal with LAA in the off-season, finished April with a .204/.252/.296 slash line, two homers, nine RBIs, six walks and 32 strikeouts.

Sure, Hamilton has long been known as a streaky hitter, but just how bad has this start been? Let’s break down the numbers a little further.

Hamilton’s .548 OPS for April was the second-lowest OPS he’s ever posted in a month ...

Fagan inspection: Find defects in Josh Hamilton’s game.

What follows isn’t an attempt to predict the rest of Hamilton’s season; it’s an attempt to use several advanced statistics to provide a deeper look at how poorly he has played so far in 2013. Keep in mind that the calendar has just barely crept into May, so we’re dealing with small sample sizes.

The stat: .248 wOBA

What wOBA doesn’t stand for: Would *Oyster Burns Approve?  How it relates to Hamilton: Hamilton isn’t drawing ...

The teams were on the field for 6 hours, 32 minutes in a marathon game that ended at 1:41 a.m. on the West Coast. It was the longest game ever played in Oakland by time and the longest in Angels history as well.

Oakland slugger Yoenis Cespedes singled off the left-center wall to drive in the tying run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

Los Angeles went ahead 8-7 in the 15th on a bases-loaded walk, but the A’s tied it in the bottom half on Adam Rosales’ two-out single after a costly ...

Rangers fans still stung by Josh Hamilton’s off-season jab at Dallas-Fort Worth not being a “baseball town” might have been tickled to see a sparse crowd on hand at the start of the Rangers-Angels game in Anaheim on Monday.

SportsDay’s Evan Grant posted a Vine from the press box showing a sparsely populated Angels Stadium as the home team took the field. The lower bowl seemed about half full, while the upper deck was mostly empty.

Official attendance for the game was announced at 36,192.

Michael Roth pitched his first game above rookie ball on April 9, working five innings for the Class AA Arkansas Travelers. Three nights later, after a game in Frisco, Tex., Roth was called into an office with Manager Tim Bogar and the pitching coach, Mike Hampton. He had no reason to expect what was coming.

“I kind of thought I was in trouble,” Roth said over the phone last week. “I was like, ‘Oh, God, what did I do?’ ”

Roth had done enough in that game — and had enough rest ...

“You Ought To Say Me A Prayer”

There may be dumber ideas than firing Mike Scioscia, but I can’t think of any. I understand why it’s a topic of conversation, and Scioscia does, too. When a team begins a season with high expectations and then falls on its face out of the gate, someone has to be held accountable.

That someone usually is the skipper. Never mind the circumstances or personnel. Never mind fairness. Competent managers get fired every season. It usually happens when management has ...

Claw Orange County hammer, replicate Trout.

Some of the Nationals feel that left fielder Bryce Harper plays with a chip on his shoulder, as if he has something to prove.

“To myself, yes,” Harper says. “To everyone else, I could care less.”

Another theory among certain Nats is that Harper is hell-bent on proving that he is better than the Angels’ Mike Trout, with whom he shared headlines last season as Trout won AL Rookie of the Year while Harper took NL honors.

“We made it to ...

Woe woe woe…

I just saw “Olympus Has Fallen,” a truly great shoot-‘em-up, bombs-blasting, suspense thriller of a movie, which explains why I occasionally tune in to an Angels game.

No one crashes and burns like the Angels, a team loaded with talent and high on expectations, only to flop.

What great reality TV it would be to just train a camera on the face of Angry Arte, beginning with inning one against a low-payroll team like Oakland, and then watch him lose it.

He got so angry at the ...

Don’t Grieve! Anything you lose comes round in another form!

Well, during the bottom of the fifth inning of the Rangers’ game at Seattle on Thursday night, Rangers television play-by-play announcer Steve Busby went to Fox Sports Southwest’s Dana Larson for an update on the Oakland-Angels game in Anaheim.

Larson reported that the A’s were leading the Angels, currently in last place in the American League West, 3-1.

Larson threw it back upstairs to Busby and Rangers’ color analyst Tom ...

Ouch!

It was painful at times, and the Texas homecoming was nastier than Los Angeles Angels right fielder Josh Hamilton ever envisioned, but finally it’s over.

“Rough crowd,” said Hamilton, after the Angels’ 7-3 defeat Sunday night to the Texas Rangers, concluding the three-game series. “It was a little more hectic than I expected. The persistence of the crowd. The first day, with the first couple of at-bats, I understood. I was able to block it out a lot better later.

“It was a little surprising, ...

Subtract one Vernon Wells, add one Josh Hamilton. It’s all about balance.

So, how did Hamilton respond to being challenged by his former team? Not so well:

First and second with two outs in the second: Three-pitch strikeout.
First and second with two outs in the fourth: Three-pitch strikeout.
First and second with one out in the eighth: First-pitch fly out to left.

Hamilton, 31, went 0 for 4 with a walk, a run scored and two strikeouts in the game, dropping his season batting line to ...

Los Angeles Angels outfielder Vernon Wells announced his pending retirement in February. He’ll play out the string on his contract following today’s trade from the Angels to the Yankees, then go into the sunset after the 2014 season to spend more time with his family. Wells has become the personification of bad contracts and terrible trades, making it too easy to forget how good he was at his peak. Let’s take a look at his career and what he was like as a prospect.

...But it was downhill after ...

Another Weaver stance deemed outdated?

With a lanky, 6-foot-7 frame and a cross-fire delivery that baffles hitters trying to pick up the ball, Jered Weaver exudes deception. But can Weaver, coming off a 20-win season, keep tricking batters as he enters his thirties and becomes one of the game’s softest tossers? Fangraphs’ Paul Swydan isn’t so sure (ESPN Insider subscription required):

  “Over the past couple of years his velocity—as well as his strikeout and swinging-strike rates—has ...

Commonly known in the biz as The Vernon Dent

Unless Bourjos wanders off a cliff and never is heard from again, Wells probably will need a flashlight and bloodhound in order to find at-bats early in the season — even if Scioscia speaks with political correctness on March 13 with nearly three weeks before opening day.

“There’s no doubt that he’s made some adjustments in the batter’s box and I think you’re seeing that quick bat and him drive the ball, but you’re also seeing him stay on ...