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Well things are going from bad to worse in Anaheim. Perennial MVP, Mike Trout, has been placed on the IL following a weird calf strain. I label it as weird because it didn’t happen on a bang bang play which is how these kind of injuries usually happen. He seemed to get injured on a rather brisk run from 2nd to 3rd base. And it’s not like he was directly involved in the play, he was merely going to third as the inning ended on a flyball.
Grade 2 calf strain for Mike Trout
The reports are that it is a Grade 2 calf strain and that it will take him out of the lineup for 6-8 weeks. That would put the earliest timeline of return to be around All Star Week. But that also means that the latest timeline could put him on track to comeback at the beginning of August. The injury was serious enough to put him on crutches for the time-being.
Mike Trout was off to a stellar star, in fact, his best 30 game start in his entire career. His current stats see him hitting .333 AVG and 8 home runs. He was even leading the majors with a .466 on-base percentage and a 1.090 OPS. Needless to say many odds had him as the favorite to win an MVP with Ohtani gaining some ground on those odds. Ohtani should now become the favorite in the MVP race as Trout is set to miss significant time.
Angels’ playoff hopes dwindling as time goes on without Trout
Perhaps the largest blow to Mike Trout is the fading chances of him making his second playoff appearance. The Angels are in 4th place in the AL West and find themselves 6 games back from a wild card spot. Not exactly ideal timing to lose your franchise player. Mike Trout can only watch as the Angels will have to fight and scrap as many wins as they can without him. Anything close to .500 would be ideal but the Angels weren’t even playing .500 baseball with him in the lineup.
