Upon serving his four-game suspension after a fan altercation after the Los Angeles Angels’ Opening Day matchup with the Oakland Athletics, Anthony Rendon returned to the club with a better understanding of the situation.
This incident involved Rendon and a fan getting into a heated confrontation, exchanging a number of words before the Angels’ third baseman took a swipe at the fan, narrowly missing him. The league responded by suspending him for five games, before reducing it to four games following an appeal.
Rendon is in the midst of a pivotal season from a performance standpoint, because his time with the Angels has been a lackluster showing while on a superstar contract. The 32-year-old has logged just 17 at-bats, posting a .536 on-base plus slugging with five runs batted in this season.
He explained the incident with the fan, and how they’ve recently been in contact, but according to Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times, Rendon belives the moment got the best of him:
“I don’t know what it was,” Rendon told the Los Angeles Times. “It just got to me, for whatever reason. I don’t know. Whether it’s just the grind of the last handful of years, just being through so much stuff. I don’t know.”
Whether it be a misfired moment, or years of frustration, the uncharacteristic outburst from Rendon is an early-season incident that he’d like to get past:
“It’s just a lot of stuff that’s happened over the last four years,” Rendon said. “It just compounded one way or another. I was actually talking to my wife about it. Like, ‘Man, we’ve been through a lot of crap.’ I’m one to hold it in and maybe that was the moment that made me explode for whatever reason and it sucks.”
There shouldn’t be any lingering effects from this and the belief is that Rendon learned from it and has publicly shown a great deal of remorse. The Angels will need him to be a pillar to their offense and a leader in the clubhouse with his plethora of postseason experience as the team attempts to push on.
Anthony Rendon said Angels’ goal is ‘to be the last team standing’
The Angels haven’t reached the postseason since the 2014 season, and after a series of offseason moves, the club is all in on competing this year, and a solid start to the season is reinforcing that notion.
General manager Perry Minasian was aggressive in bringing veteran bats to supplement the offense in which they were deficient last season. So far, Hunter Renfroe and Logan O’Hoppe are making a large impact, and their depth has been much improved to help keep them competitive with multiple injuries.
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