Los Angeles Angels get a scare from Trout lose series

The Los Angeles Angels have been reeling as of late losing 6 of their last 7 games dropping the last two series.  Today they had a minor league pitcher who was once a 1st round pick get rocked for the 2nd time in a week. However, in the 8th inning everyone held their collective breaths as Mike Trout was hit in the hand.

Everything seems to have gone wrong for the Los Angeles Angels as they have had 13 different players go on the disabled list.  However, the one solace everyone could take is the fact that we have Mike Trout.  Watching Mike Trout play can put a smile on almost anyone’s face.

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Those smiles turned to looks of horror on Sunday afternoon as Mike Trout was hit with an inside fastball by Cleveland Indians pitcher Tommy Hunter in the 8th inning of an 8-3 Angels loss.  Trout shook his hand in pain and the training staff and manager Mike Scioscia ran out of the dugout to check on Trout.  Scioscia knew that if Trout went down for an extended time it would likely end any chances the Angels had of competing for a playoff spot this season.

While the window of opportunity for the Los Angeles Angels has gotten smaller and smaller with injury to a key player, there has still been a sense of optimism that if the team can just hang in there until they can get most of their players back from injuries, they can make a late run.

Many fans and baseball experts have written the Angels off and in a lot of ways I cannot blame them. It is hard to keep the faith when you see player after player go down with an injury.  Just when there is a glimmer of hope something else happens that seems to dash the hope.

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Saturday night was a perfect example of this.  Angels pitcher Matt Shoemaker pitches his tail off for eight innings shutting down a vaunted Cleveland Indians offense giving up three hits and no runs striking out 11 batters and only walking one.  Huston Street, the usually reliable closer, came on in the ninth and blew the lead allowing three runs on four hits, denying Shoemaker of his fourth win.  Thanks to Brendan Ryan‘s first hit as an Angel and a clutch single by Yunel Escobar the Angels were able to escape with a 4-3 victory that broke a 5-game losing steak.  However, Street’s inability to close out the game took a little luster off the win.

Then moving on to Sunday the Angels turned to journeyman David Huff, the local boy trying to make good in his second start of the week.  It would be a nice feel good story, but unfortunately Huff was not even able to last two innings giving up five runs in 1.2 innings and putting the Angels in an early 5-0 hole which they would not recover from.

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To make matters worse left-hander Jose Alvarez was hit in the right shin by a hard ground ball off the bat of Francisco Lindor and had to be removed from the game.  Alvarez is listed as day-to-day.  That brings us back to the fateful pitch that struck Mike Trout in the hand.  After the trainers looked at Trout’s hand it was decided to remove him from the game.

Luckily X-Rays on Trout’s hand came back negative according to MLB.com’s Fabian Ardaya.  In an interview with Ardaya, Trout said, “I’m just glad it’s not broken. When you’re hit in the hand or you’re hit in the finger, it’s a scary thing.”

Scioscia says that he expects Trout to play today when the Angels open a three-game series with the Twins.

In some other good news is that Tim Lincecum looked good again in his third and hopefully final rehab start for the Salt Lake City Bees Sunday afternoon.  Lincecum went seven innings giving up only one hit and no runs while striking out eight batters.  His ERA in his three starts is 2.65 for the Bees.  Most likely Lincecum will make his first start for the Angels on Friday night in Oakland.  Shortstop Andrelton Simmons went 0 for 4 in the game lowering his average to .357 for the Bees in four rehab starts at shortstop.  He could come back some time this week, but no date has been set as of yet.

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Hopefully Lincecum and Simmons will breath some life into the Angels and help them break out of their recent slump.  We will have to wait and see.

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