The Los Angeles Angels placed Anthony Rendon on the 10-day injured list this week, and in turn, they selected the contract of Kevin Padlo from Triple-A Salt Lake.
Rendon suffered a bruised wrist after being hit by a pitch on June 15, prompting the move. Without the veteran third baseman’s bat in the lineup, the Angels lacked a serious punch in a run-producing slot in their lineup.
With Shohei Ohtani on an absolute tear, and Mike Trout seeming to benefit from it, trying to keep the offense rolling in Rendon’s absence was a huge factor in their decision, per Jeff Fletcher of the O.C. Register:
After the Angels recalled Kevin Padlo, as opposed to someone like David Fletcher or Livan Soto, Manager Phil Nevin said it was Padlo’s power potential that appealed to them.
“We need a little more meat in the lineup, if you will,” Nevin said. “We’ve lost some guys that are impact bats. He’s got a chance, especially against lefties, to add that.”
While in Triple-A this season, Padlo had posted a .532 slugging percentage. Of his 33 hits on the year, 19 of them had gone for extra bases, seven of them via the home run.
The infielder signed a Minor League contract with the Angels in the offseason. The decision to call him up, as opposed to another option like Fletcher, or Jo Adell was odd, but the team believes the former should be contributing very soon:
General Manager Perry Minasian reiterated that he has confidence Fletcher will be back at some point.
“Fletch has played well,” Minasian said. “I do believe at some point he will help us. He was out for a significant time with a personal thing where he didn’t play for five, six days. Fletch is playing well. I believe he will definitely help us at some point this year.”
The 29-year-old has spent 40 games entering play on June 21 with the Salt Lake Bees, and in that span, he’s posted a terrific line. In 166 at-bats, he owns an .890 on-base plus slugging, including 22 runs batted in.
His high number of singles, with 14 walks to just 13 strikeouts, is a very Fletcher statistic, and could be of use with the big club.
Angels expect Gio Urhsela to miss significant time
The 31-year-old was involved in a bang-bang play, which occurred in the first inning of the Angels’ 5-3 win over the Texas Rangers. Urshela tried to stop himself from falling, which led to the left pelvis fracture.
There’s a lot of unknown with the initial evaluation of Gio Urshela’s injury, mainly because pelvis fractures range from small cracks, to extreme cases, such as massive fractures.
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