Mike Trout return from injury has unlocked new level of performance from Angels' star

When Mike Trout went down with a hand injury against the Texas Rangers, it was essentially the last thing the LA Angels needed to deal with.

The team was banking on a major comeback season from the best player in the game over the last 11 years, and seeing him deal with another serious injury could potentially put the nail in the coffin on another season. Luckily, however, Trout's injury only kept him out five days.

Since he's been back, he's surprisingly been performing...better? How this is possible is rather incredible; as Trout was hitting .267/.405/.567 (.972 OPS) with two homers, eight runs scored and three RBIs in nine games.

Somehow, however, Mike Trout's actually been stronger POST-injury for the LA Angels.

Mike Trout has hit .438/.500/.938 (1.438 OPS) for the LA Angels since his return. And yes, you read that correctly. He has a .938 slugging percentage. That somehow might be more impressive than his .438 batting average, or maybe even more impressive than his .500 on-base percentage.

In four games since the injury (as of the end of April 25th's contest against the Cleveland Guardians), Trout has hit two homers, driven in two, and scored four runs of his own. Yes, that's the same amount of home runs in four games that he had before the injury in nine.

It's puzzling as to why so many claimed that Trout was washed and done for in this league. He was having the best year of his career before he went down with an injury last season. This year, while we're looking at an incredibly small sample size, he's been even better.

Nothing seems to slow Trout down these days. Nothing's seemed to ever slow Trout down throughout his entire career. Betting against Trout will remain a bad idea, and he has already quieted some critics from the offseason that should have never been there in the first place.