Joe Maddon hints Mike Trout’s return may be closer than we thought

The LA Angels are in Baltimore right now, and Mike Trout is with them.

He’s been traveling with the team since they headed to New York, and has even been participating in some on-field activities before games.

He’s improving in his recovery, and it certainly looks like he’ll be back sometime this year to finish the season.

Mike Trout may even be back for the LA Angels sooner than we may have expected.

According to LA Angels Manager Joe Maddon, Mike Trout isn’t ready to make a rehab assignment just yet.

Maddon had more to say, however:

"“He’s been doing more movement on the field. It’s all there. We’re all looking forward to it, he is too. [I’m] not ready to give you a final deadline timeline, but he is feeling better in a lot of ways. Meaning that the next day [after working out] is not nearly as difficult as it had been.”"

The fact that Trout is feeling much better is big. That wasn’t the case earlier, and he even stopped traveling with the team at one point. He’s being more mobile, which is good because it used to be a rare sight whenever we’d see Trout hit or run on that calf.

Angels.com has Trout returning in September. That’s not ideal at all, but he’s at least going to make it back. Not too long ago, we didn’t even know if he’d ever be back for the Halos this year.

I’ll take this progress, and again, if the Angels can have any sort of winning record by the time Trout gets back, don’t count them out for a postseason run once they get their franchise player back.