LA Angels Series Preview: Finding fresh air in Cleveland

Build Me Up (Buttercup)

Mike Trout disappeared when we needed him most and that might be the most awful part of this failed home stand. Against the Tigers Mike Trout has hit a pitiful .156/.348/.368 and during the Orioles series Trout himself left men on base in the double digits. It was an awful home stand all around, but the worst part was definitely watching Trout flail at the plate in high leverage situations time and time again. His swing has been going through ups and downs all season, but the slumps he’s been hitting this season may be the worst slumps he’s ever had in his entire career. The fact that he turns into a monster when he’s hot covers up the fact that he is one of the worst hitters on the team when he’s slumping.

Constant pop ups on pitches in the meat on the zone, constantly watching easy strikes go by, swings at non-competitive balls; we’re seeing a Mike Trout who is as far away from looking like Mike Trout as he’s ever been. He did have a home run against the Tigers yesterday, but aside from that he’s been almost non-existent in this lineup.

I don’t to make it out to seem like I’m blaming Trout for the failures of this recent home stand because we’ve seen how good this offense can be without Trout. It’s been all around team failures that have hurt the Angels, but Trout’s inability to contribute when needed most only makes it feel worse. Trout really needs to find his swing because the Angels are finally going up against teams that can actually play baseball. The Angels are the best team in baseball at making chumps look like Grade A talents, so one can only wonder how bad it’s going to get when a team that can actually play the game takes on the Halos.

It actually won’t be bad at all because the Angels are going to use this opportunity to build us up with a hot series against the Indians only to break us down later in the month. Classic Angels baseball.