Mourning for Jose--And a hiatus

In terms of stepping up, I've been following the Halos from Germany for roughly the past two weeks. I can only hope that it is my absence that has resulted in such team failures and that upon my return the Angels will not lose a single game the rest of the way.

As with any latter half of July, the trade rumors are swirling. Fans are demanding that Bill Stoneman "do something" about our offensive woes and our not so impressive new record for most consecutive innings without a homerun (and I worry that now we've had TWO in the last two games Bill will declare the situation cured). The LA Times and various other SoCal news services report that Stoney is indeed working the phones. But what has he done so far?

TRADED PERHAPS OUR BEST DEFENSIVE CATCHER FOR A MEDIOCRE RELIEF PITCHER. Now I know Jose couldn't really hit. But he called a damn good game, especially for the not so reliable pitchers such as Bartolo Colon (who also may be departing soon, but that's an entirely different kind of flying, all together ["that's an entirely different kind of flying"]). Now he's being replaced with Jeff Mathis, who I might add apparently cannot hit to save his life. I'm sorry, but we would have been much better off letting Jose go into Free Agency (if that!) and letting Jeffrey attempt to hone his "skills" in AAA.

I can see how trading Jose makes sense. But this club needs help NOW, and this move doesn't do ANYTHING towards that end. If we had packaged Molina with a good prospect (Bulger? Wilson? Statia?) and landed bullpen help, or even if we had gotten straight-up a strong outfield prospect with good power (even if he was a year or two away), then saying farewell to Jose would have been bittersweet but a decent move overall.

Instead, we've thoroughly damaged ourselves.

As I said above, with Wraith gone for a while and me not back in the U.S. for another two days, LUTH is going to have to go on temporary hiatus. Check for updates on the weekend!