The Angels have been historically inept as an offense without Mike Trout this season. It’s not going to get better. Trout has a UCL tear in his left thumb, and he’ll undergo surgery Wednesday to repair the injury. The team says a typical recovery timetable is 6-8 weeks.
It’s okay to wear black to work tomorrow.
Trout was off to the best start of his career, which should have been impossible. The 25-year-old* was hitting .337/.461/.742 and leading the American League with 16 homers before sliding into second base and tearing ligaments in his left thumb on Sunday. Instead of chasing his third MVP, the baseball deity will go to the DL for the first time in his career.
In Trout’s absence the Angels will try Emmanuel Dontcare in center, with Desmond Deepsigh called up from the minors to fill the 25-man roster. While the Angels have lost something substantial, it’s worth noting that Trout was one of the few players in baseball where everyone feels like they’ve lost something substantial. The 2017 season is automatically worse, and it happened on an innocuous slide into second base, the kind we see 58 times a week.
Ban second base, in other words. Full column coming on Tuesday. And hopefully Trout gets better soon. For the sake of all of us.
* lol