Lost in all the craziness of the Shohei Ohtani injury last night was the news that star outfielder Mike Trout would be heading back to the injured list. This comes just a day after he made his return to the team after missing almost two months.
Trout suffered a fractured hamate in early July, and it has caused issues for him since. It has been a big blow to the Angels this season for him to miss this time, as they have been trying to climb back into contention.
But it seems that he may have come back too soon. He now heads back to the injured list, and the Angels frustrating season continues. General Manager Perry Minasian gave an update on why Trout was going back as soon as he did.
“You need your hands to hit,” Minasian said. “It’s a significant injury that he’s coming back from and the last thing you want to do is him start compensating for his hand and doing other things and hurting other body parts. So we’re gonna give it 10 days to let it calm down. He’s not going to swing a bat for the next couple days. There’s no timeframe. We’re gonna go day to day and you’ll see where it goes.”
Per The OC Register
Now the Halos must try to navigate the rest of the season without their two top guys. Ohtani could potentially still hit, but Trout is likely done for a while.
The Angels are basically out of the playoff hunt, so it may not make sense to bring him back this year. So barring a miraculous run by this team without their stars, all they would be doing is hurting themselves if they choose to do so.
This isn’t how the Angels saw the season going, especially when they made some aggressive trade deadline moves. But this is the reality that the organization finds itself in as we get closer to September.
Things aren’t looking great for the Halos, and their worst fears may have been realized on Wednesday night.