**BREAKInG** PUJOLS AN ANGEL

[Kevin Greene]

Mickey was on the '88 Dodger World Series team with Scoscia so they go way back, dont know if Mike will blow him out.

Anyone remember Hatcher hit a 2 run home run early in Game 1 before Kirk Gibson hit his classic game winner?

Pujols has to be pressing, give him a day off Mike, dont even let him come to the stadium.

.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) Albert Pujols has hit his first regular-season home run since joining the Los Angeles Angels, ending the longest drought of his 12-year career after 33 games and 139 at-bats.

Pujols' two-run shot into the left-field bullpen Sunday came in the fifth inning against Toronto's Drew Hutchison.

Pujols was playing his 28th game for the Angels since leaving St. Louis and signing a $240 million, 10-year contract. The homer, estimated at 390 feet, came in his 111 at-bat for the Angels.

The three-time NL MVP hit seven home runs in spring training. His regular-season drought began last year with the Cardinals.

Pujols' home run was his 446th in the big leagues. The only game he's missed this season was Saturday night's 6-2 victory, when manager Mike Scioscia gave him the day off.

Mike finally listened to me.

:cam:

[Kevin Greene]

Everyone is going to bury the Angels, but all they really need to do is fire hitting coach Mickey Hatcher. Hatcher has never been held accountable for a track record that is average, at best. Players like Pujols and Wells come in and struggle, while players like Napoli have moved on and thrived. Bringing in a hitting coach who the players don't see as a flaming dumbass would do wonders for the team.

You may well be right, much to Scioscia's dismay Hatcher was blown out by the Halo's new GM.

.

ANAHEIM—The machine that was supposed to be the Los Angeles Angels has a major malfunction.

One of its designers realized this over the last who-knows-how-long. After six weeks of crossing his fingers each day hoping it would start, like a man praying his bucket of a car gets him to work every morning, the designer has started to rebuild this shiny, sputtering contraption.

That decision was met with much displeasure by one of the other designers, the lead designer over the previous 12 seasons.

First-year general manager Jerry Dipoto made it clear who is in charge when he decided to fire hitting coach Mickey Hatcher on Tuesday night. Hatcher is one of longtime manager Mike Scioscia’s closest friends and was one of his most trusted coaches.

Dipoto’s reasoning is sound. The Angels, expected to be a World Series contender after spending heavily on free agents this offseason, are off to a brutal start. They started Wednesday seven games behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the American League West, and their malnourished offense is the major reason for that.

Entering Wednesday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, the Angels had been shut out a league-leading eight times and are 12th out of 14 AL teams in runs scored (134) and OBP (.301), 11th in slugging (.379) and OPS (.680) and are 1-17 when they score three or fewer runs.

Suddenly Pujos is hitting home runs and already has 3 hits tonight.

Stay tuned.

http://m.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2012-05-16/jerry-dipoto-los-angeles-hitting-woes-mickey-hatcher-fired-albert-pujols

[Swarly]

Let's calm down a bit.

Still a sub .300OBP in May among many other pathetic stats. Just because he had a good week doesn't really change he's been arguably(not sure it's arguable TBH) the worst player in baseball up until last week.

[FurdTurgason]

Supposedly being away from his family was a huge adjustment for him. His oldest daughter has Downs syndrome. He hit another three-run tater last night in Seattle. I would love to know what his stats pre- and post-Hatcher are/were. Hatcher survived as long as he did because everyone liked the guy and he worked his butt off. But he was a terrible hitting coach.

[Kevin Greene]

Supposedly being away from his family was a huge adjustment for him. His oldest daughter has Downs syndrome. He hit another three-run tater last night in Seattle. I would love to know what his stats pre- and post-Hatcher are/were. Hatcher survived as long as he did because everyone liked the guy and he worked his butt off. But he was a terrible hitting coach.

Hatcher was hitting .212 with 1 HR when Hatch was fired on the 15th.

Today he's batting .232 with 7 home runs and 32 RBI. Home runs in each of his last 3 games as well.

Angels have won 5 in a row and are already in 2nd place in their division. Quite a turn around.

[Swarly]

Trout and fantastic pitching has had more of an impact on the Angels turnaround than Pujols.

[FurdTurgason]

Trout playing center (replacing Bourjos), Trumbo playing every day, Albert finally coming around....but perhaps the biggest difference in the Angels is their bullpen. Dipoto picked up some kid named Frieri from the Padres and he has changed the Angels bullpen from perhaps the worst in MLB to one of the best. He has allowed no hits in his first nine plus innings with the Halos. He's a rightie, and with lefty Scott Downs they are closing games out and that is huge. Angels blew several games early this year.

[Kevin Greene]

I think the Halo's entire staff ERA is under 3.5 for the season which is miniscule by AL standards. So the pitching has been good all season long, a lot of wasted efforts due to pathetic early hitting.