SAN DIEGO — Everything was already going wrong for the Angels on Monday night.
And then Mike Trout got hurt.
Trout, who had just been heating up at the plate, left the Angels’ 10-3 loss to the San Diego Padres in the eighth inning, with an injury to his left wrist.
“I’m just praying the results come back clean,” Trout said after undergoing tests after the game. “It doesn’t feel great. Hopefully, it’s just a sprained wrist.”
Trout took a swing at a pitch and fouled it off, and then he shook his left hand. Head athletic trainer Mike Frostad came to check on the three-time American League MVP, and he was quickly removed from the game.
“Just really uncomfortable,” Trout said of the feeling. “I can’t really describe it. I never felt it before, ever. I never had wrist problems or anything. Just a freak thing.”
Trout, who is set to start in the All-Star Game next week after missing the previous two with injuries, had two singles and a walk in the game, continuing a stretch that had seen him hit .340 over the past two weeks.
“I’m seeing the ball better,” he said. “It’s tough.”
Manager Phil Nevin has seen his team deal with injuries to infielders Anthony Rendon, Zach Neto, Brandon Drury and Gio Urshela in the past few weeks, and now if they lose their star center fielder it would be another difficult blow to withstand.
“We’ve talked all along about our depth and it’s been tested,” Nevin said. “We’ve been adding to that. We’ve lost some big pieces to this. We’ve talked about having the next guy up. Same thing in this case. It’ll give somebody the opportunity to get more looks and get more at-bats, depending on what the outcome of Mike’s tests are. So we’ll see how it goes.”
Trout had been one of the bright spots on a bad night, as the Angels lost for the fifth time in their last six games.
Starter Jaime Barría didn’t pitch well enough, and he was burned by his defense in one crucial sequence.
Shortstop David Fletcher made a bad throw on what would have been a first-inning double play. It allowed the inning to extend for Xander Bogaerts to hit a three-run homer. Barria still managed to get through five innings, allowing just one more run.
“I thought he threw the ball great,” Nevin said. “He gave us everything we expected out of him.”
The Angels trailed 4-0 when he threw his final pitch because they had come up empty repeatedly with runners in scoring position.
In the first five innings, the Angels were 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position, leaving nine runners on base and getting nothing out of seven hits and four walks.
The Angels finally got back into the game in the sixth.
Rengifo and pinch-hitter Mike Moustakas singled. Taylor Ward drove in one with his second double of the game. Trout then knocked in a run with his second hit of the game, pulling the Angels within 4-2.
Nevin took Barria out after five innings and 87 pitches, with the heart of the Padres’ order due for the third time. With the Angels still losing, Nevin didn’t want to burn his high-leverage relievers in a game they were losing, so he summoned rookie right-hander Victor Mederos for his second major league game.
All he had to do was face Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Bogaerts.
Mederos didn’t retire any of them – although Tatis reached on a broken-bat hit and Bogaerts on an infield hit. That led to two more runs.
Tucker Davidson and Sam Bachman combined to give up three more runs in the seventh. Bachman continued and gave up another run in the eighth. In his last five games, he’s allowed 11 hits, three walks and five earned runs in five innings. The Angels also had him throw 44 pitches two days after he threw 34 pitches.
“We had to go deep into our bullpen tonight, which has been used a lot,” Nevin said.
The Angels would have used different relievers if they had a lead, which they might have achieved if they had turned the double play in the first or converted some of their scoring opportunities in the first five innings.
“The game should have been a lot different,” Nevin said.
— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) July 4, 2023
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