Angels weaponize heavenly body, defeat Mariners 8-2

With the WBC in full swing, spring training is going to get kind of silly, especially in a Mariners/Angels matchup. With Julio, Trout, and Ohtani gone, both teams were content to just throw guys up there and let them play baseball.

And there’s a lot of things we could focus on, like how Kolten Wong got on base in all three of his PAs, or how Jarred hit a couple of nice ground ball singles and later only barely missed a home run. We could talk about how the Mariners got the lead-off hitter aboard in almost every inning or Robbie Ray’s 6 strikeouts in 3 innings. But we’re not going to talk about any of that.

Instead, the narrative we’re choosing to focus on today is the perils of navigating the outfield. And we’re going to do so in classic LL style: gifs of outfield misplays!

Interestingly, I can’t call them “outfield errors” because none of them were scored as errors. That’s because baseball is an unserious sport and we’re just here for a good time. But also because the ball (with one exception) didn’t touch a glove, which it has to in order to be scored as an error. Anyway, let us commence the gifage:

At least he got a glove on it.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me... you can’t get fooled again.

Nothing bad happened here, I just thought it was funny,

And lo, Helios, in all his glory filled the sky and spake in his thunderous voice “good luck catching this one.”

To err is human, to err three times in a single game is very funny.

And that’s pretty much how the game went. In the 7th inning Jo Adell hit a ball so hard that general relativity took hold and it experienced time dilation, but we don’t have to worry about that.

So yeah, this game had a bit of a sandlot “just for fun” vibe to it. I wouldn’t worry too much about any of this misplays. The sun was in their eyes, and they just couldn’t see the ball. It’s spring training, things are going to be kind of goofy. For example, here’s a gif from last year that I still have and still love.

Look at Winker hit the deck like the drill sergeant just told him to do 20 pushups. I’m not gonna miss his fielding this year.

So, yeah, Mariners lost but whatever. At least we get some fun gifs out of it. That’s what really matters. Sound off in the comments on which one is your favorite. I really like the way Polcovich waves his arm in the last one. But I still don’t know why that first one isn’t an error.