The Los Angeles Angels have been without Mike Trout since July 3, when he suffered a broken hamate bone in his left hand that figured to sideline him for upwards of 6-8 weeks. Seven weeks later, it appears Trout could be ready to make his return to the field.
The Angels have not formally said anything regarding his return, but on Sunday, the team optioned Jordyn Adams to Triple-A Salt Lake without a corresponding call-up or activation. It’s likely that this means Trout is ready to go, especially after manager Phil Nevin referred to Trout as almost day to day on Saturday.
Trout returning to the lineup means the Angels get back not only their best position player and one of the best players in baseball, but they no longer have to test their depth as often with an anchor in center field.
Before he returns, we’ll take a look back at the last seven weeks to see how the Angels fared in his absence both in the stat sheet and in the record books.
Angels record and streaks without Trout
The Angels managed to tread water without their superstar for a short while, but a couple of losing streaks set them back and, in all likelihood, took them out of the postseason picture.
L.A. lost their first five games and six of the first seven without Trout. This included two losses to the San Diego Padres and two blowout losses to the L.A. Dodgers. But they turned their fortune around after the sluggish start, winning 10 of their next 13.
This stretch included sweeps of the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers. For the most part, their offense was humming, scoring five runs or more in seven of the 13 games. But Angels pitching is truly what excelled, giving up 3.1 runs per game over this stretch.
But when the calendar flipped to August, things quickly went south for the Angels. The Angels have one series victory in 18 games and lost seven consecutive to begin the month. They have fallen from 5.5 games back in the American League West to 12 games back in that span.
In total, the Angels went 16-22 over Trout’s potentially 38 missed games. They were three games above .500 when he went on the injured list and are three games below .500 now.
Angels offensive stats without Trout
Between July 4 and Aug. 20, the Angels found themselves towards the bottom of the rankings in nearly all the major statistical offensive categories. Below is a compiled list of Halos stats without Trout and where they ranked league-wide in that span.
Average – .234 (t-25th)
OBP – .301 (25th)
Slugging – .416 (17th)
OPS – .717 (20th)
wRC+ – 93 (t-20th)
Runs – 171 (20th)
K – 390 (t-5th)
BB – 110 (t-22nd)
Hard Hit % – 32.9 (21st)
Ground Ball % – 44.3 (6th)