Angels pitcher Garrett Richards suffered what appeared to be a significant knee injury while trying to make a play at first in the second inning of a game against the Red Sox Wednesday. He fell while still running to first and spent several minutes on the ground in obvious pain before being removed on a stretcher. There’s no word yet on the severity of the injury (which the Angels described as a “left knee/patellar injury“) but if it’s as serious as it appears to be, it would be a big blow to the Angels. Entering tonight’s game, Richards had posted a 2.53 ERA with 8.8 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 167 innings this season, and the Angels are currently fighting the Athletics for first place in the AL West. Here are more notes from the division.
- Diminutive Astros star Jose Altuve has made it big despite his size, writes Tyler Kepner of the New York Times. “He’s an anomaly,” says Astros assistant GM David Stearns. “He’s tough to explain, other than the fact he works as hard or harder than anyone, he’s got freakish hand-eye skills, he loves baseball and he wants to be great.” History indicates that Altuve is, in fact, very unusual, Kepner writes — there isn’t anyone in the Hall of Fame listed at 5-foot-6 or shorter who debuted in the Majors since the early 1940s. Altuve signed for just $15K as an amateur out of Venezuela.
- The Athletics have struggled since their surprising trade of Yoenis Cespedes and a draft pick for Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes, John Branch of the New York Times notes. It’s not clear that the trade is to blame, however. “We were struggling some before the trade as well, and we haven’t been as good offensively as we have been for the better part of a season,” says manager Bob Melvin. “But I expect us to get much better offensively because we still do have a very deep lineup.”
The A’s struggled offensively before trading Cespedes.
Angels have to be in contention for the services of Lester/Scherzer/Shields. I don’t care what Dipito says.
He’s talked before about having his hands tied financially and then signed Albert Pujols.
Was that by choice though? I thought Moreno made that call.
Massive blow to the angels rotation. now is the time the angels need to workout a deal with one of the bottom teams to aquire a pitcher, hopefully one of the cubs,twins,rockies,Dbacks, or phillies pitchers will do.
The only one you listed in the American League is the Twins and well I’m sure they’d be willing to deal Ricky Nolasco, you definitely don’t want him.
They should make a deal but at the same time their pitching staff’s numbers since June show they are far less dependent on the season Richards was having than it might appears. Especially with the bullpen they now have.
Yeah that may be true but if they don’t have him for the playoffs, it is a big blow to the Angels. Not good at all and very sad to see such a talented young starter have to go through this in the middle of a playoff race.
You can have Kyle Kendrick. All it will cost you is his flight from Philly to LA.
The hot dog eating guy
We have Ubaldo Jimenez keeping the bullpen benches warm…
It’ll never happen but I’m hoping the Halos can swing a trade for Hamels now.
This season? It can’t happen (he was already claimed on waivers and pulled back – impossible for the Phillies to trade him).
Now if you’re talking the offseason, it’s possible, but still very unlikely. Phillies would want great talent back for him (Calhoun would probably have to be the “frontliner” in that deal and then tack on about 3 of your top 10 prospects, because while you produce good players, nobody is really a standout in your system right now).
I was at the game tonight and it was really strange because there was no play near Richards. Nobody in the ballpark seemed to notice for a while.
My immediate reactions were “Wow I hope it’s nothing serious” and “Who am I going to get to fill the other RP slot on my fantasy team now?” I might be lying about the order in which I felt those.
What? The guy laying on the ground for a while before be taken away by a stretcher didn’t seem important/serious to you?
Well nobody noticed because we were all watching the play that was happening at third and then suddenly there was a big wave of “ooh”s that happened as everyone started looking over at first.
And there are a plenty of ways to injure your leg that would put you on the ground in the short term but are easily recoverable, and then there are serious serious injuries. Seems like Richards might be in a middle category at least as far as time down is concerned, but I was worried about him having whacked his head against the ground or something.
better call up the mets and see if they can land B.colon. richards wont be ready before next season starts