The Los Angeles Angels have had better days.
Tuesday began with star outfielder Mike Trout hitting the 10-day injured list after fracturing the hamate bone in his left wrist on a seemingly uneventful foul ball. The injury will reportedly keep Trout sidelined for four to eight weeks, which is not what you want to hear when you are the 45-42 Angels and 3.5 games back from the final wild-card spot, as they were entering Tuesday.
A game in which Shohei Ohtani is the starting pitcher sounds like a perfect respite from that bad news. It wasn’t.
First, oft-injured Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon left the game in the fourth inning with a left shin bruise after fouling a ball off of it. X-rays were reportedly negative for any kind of fracture, but optimism has never been rewarding for a player who has been placed on the injured list seven times in his two-and-a-half seasons with the Angels.
Then the game went full nightmare in the sixth inning, when Xander Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth hit back-to-back homers off Ohtani for the first time in his MLB career.
Ohtani then exited the game with a trainer and was later announced to have left due to a blister issue. His previous start saw him leave with a cracked fingernail.
The Angels lost the game 8-5, falling to 45-43.
The good news for the Angels is Rendon and Ohtani’s injuries don’t sound like the kind that will cause them to miss significant time (although you never know with Rendon). A trip to the injured list for either wouldn’t even be too costly due to the upcoming All-Star break — placing them on the IL on Wednesday would require them to miss a minimum of only four games, with a potential return date on July 15.
But that’s not going to do much to fix the vibe around the team entering the break. After beginning the season in the mix for their first playoff spot since 2014, the Angels are once again in the familiar place of being just out of reach of a wild card berth while navigating injuries with their stars and underperformance from their supporting cast.
With Ohtani’s free agency looming this offseason, a familiar place is the worst place to be when the two-way phenom has talked about wanting to play for a winning organization.