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At the beginning of May, we were still trying to pick our jaws up off the floor after watching Mike Trout have the best opening month of his illustrious and already-legendary baseball career. The things he did in April were on a level all their own, one that only Trout himself can reach because the rest of the league just do not have the skills to get there. The MLB is full of amazing, young talent, but none amazing as Trout.
If there were any naysayers out there who were hoping he’d cool off a bit, or some haters who were thinking he’d get slowed down by that hamstring tightness he experienced at the beginning of May, then you’d have to imagine they’ve changed their name and/or gone into hiding by now, just so they can save some face and avoid being correctly called out as dolts. There is no slowing down on this Mike Trout rocketship; in fact, he’s done the polar opposite, kicking his season into warp drive and making Angels fans believe in the unbelievable.
So, here we are, hitting the later part of May, and Mike Trout is doing things on a nightly basis that are as beautiful as they are inimitable, to the point where a poet, not a baseball writer, would have a better chance to appropriately describe his triumphs.
Yet, I’m the only person who is talking about it. Just me. Why is nobody talking about how good Mike Trout is playing right now?!
Trout is currently slashing 341/.451/.742, with 13 homers (he’s on pace for 49!!) and eight stolen bases. He’s striking out less, hitting more and walking a ton. He became the youngest player ever to reach 150 homers and 150 stolen bases. He had a four game stretch in which he had a dinger in every game, and right now he’s hit five dingers in his last six games. But again, I am the only person that has noticed this. What gives?!
Why is nobody talking about Trout being atop the bWAR leaderboard already, or the fact that he’s learned how to keep his strikeout numbers lower, and forcing pitchers to IBB him more regularly? Those were some weaknesses in an almost-perfect skillset, but he’s patched those tiny holes and has shown us a Mike Trout that is somehow better than Mike Trout. He’s also shown that he’s barely swinging at pitches outside the zone, if he even swings at them at all, and when he DOES swing at some of those pitches, you get results like this:
Just your casual 5 home runs in 6 days from @MikeTrout. pic.twitter.com/KTrHhS895T
— MLB (@MLB) May 18, 2017
So, we’re basically seeing the best player on the planet actually playing BETTER than the best player on the planet, which seems impossible, but then again, Mike Trout IS impossible. Yet, there he is, showing us what baseball nirvana looks like on the regular, but for whatever reason, I’m the only person that is noticing. This is madness.
Trout’s 2017 season may go down in history as the greatest sporting achievement mankind has ever witnessed; he’s stealing more bases, murdering baseballs with ease, rarely striking out, and doing just about every other thing imaginable that was heretofore thought to be relegated to video games or our own daydreams. Still, I’m the only one who is actually noticing, nobody else seems to be paying any attention to Trout.
We are truly living in a detached, morose and cynical world when someone who has set such an impossibly high bar of performance manages to somehow surpass that impossibly high bar of performance, and nobody in the baseball world or media write large cares enough to write or talk about it.
I guess I’m lucky, in that I can see all of these Mike Trout accomplishments for the unrivaled, unparalleled and unbelievable feats of baseball sorcery that they are, and it is my duty to share them with the world. Hopefully this article gets word out that Mike Trout is playing better than ever, which is to say he’s playing better than anybody the sport has ever seen.
I was the only one to acknowledge any of this, but hopefully I’m not alone anymore. Mike Trout is not from this world, and he’s only getting better. Let’s just hope the rest of the baseball community finally takes notice.