Bad News for Los Angeles Angels, Cron breaks hand

The Los Angeles Angels injury-plagued  season continued Friday night as first baseman C.J. Cron, who has been the hottest Angel over the past couple of weeks was hit by a Mike Wright inside fastball in the Angels 9-5 victory.

So what does this mean for the Los Angeles Angels?  In the immediate, the Angels will call up Ji-Man Choi from Triple-A Salt Lake City to provide depth at both first base and designated hitter. Jefry Marte will again play a significant role for the Angels backing up Pujols at first and also at designated hitter along with help from Choi.

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Choi did not hit well his first time in the majors as he made the Opening Day roster going 1 for 18 (.056).  However since then Choi is batting .329 with four home runs 27 runs batted in.  What is even more impressive is a .413 on base percentage.  Hopefully this stint will be better for Choi but that remains to be seen.

Back to Cron who is one week removed from his best game as a professional as he went 6 for 6 with two home runs and five RBI’s.  Three games later Cron again hit two home runs with four RBI’s.  Over the past 15 games Cron was batting .322 with six home runs and 20 RBI’s and a .695 slugging percentage.  Overall this season Cron is batting .278 with 11 homers and has driven in 50 runs.

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The question will be can Marte and Choi fill Cron’s shoes while he is on the DL? No timetable has been set as of yet for Cron’s potential return.  Most players with the same injury have a recovery time of about four to six weeks.  This will be determined after Cron has surgery and doctors see the extent of the damage. Hopefully Cron’s recovery time will be on the shorter end of the spectrum.

What is even more important though is how effective Cron will be when he returns. Cron is having his finest season as a pro both cutting down on his strikeouts and increasing his batting average and on-base-percentage.  Before getting hit Cron drove in two runs in Friday night’s 9-5 Angels victory over the Orioles, their fourth win in a row.

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Are the Angels finally pulling things together?  Can they make a second half run and get back in the playoff picture?  I don’t know if I would go that far, but the team’s recent offensive surge is encouraging starting with last Saturday’s 21 run outburst in Boston.  The Angels have scored five or more runs six times in the past seven games, five of which were Angels victories.

What has been lost in this offensive surge has been improved starting pitching as Hector Santiago has had two quality starts with two victories.  Jered Weaver also pitched one of his best starts of the season and got a victory.  Matt Shoemaker and Nick Tropeano both had solid starts with Shoemaker getting his 4th victory of the season.

Let’s hope that the Angels can continue their hot-hitting and more importantly keep winning without Cron for at least the next month.  In another move outfielder Shane Robinson was placed on the DL Thursday after spraining his right ankle in Wednesday’s game and recalled Todd Cunningham from Salt Lake.

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Daniel Nava who also left Wednesday’s game with soreness in his patella tendon returned to the line-up Friday after sitting the past two games on the artificial turf in Tampa.  Nava made an immediate impact leaping high above the left field wall to rob Manny Machado of a first inning home run and later drove in two runs with a sacrifice fly and a single.

Let’s see what happens.