All Is Not Well as Mike Trout Injures Thumb; Who Cares That the Angels Lost 9-2?

Remember the date. May 28, 2017. Because on this particular warm, Sunday afternoon in Miami, Mike Trout was doing Mike Trout things. He was baseballing. In the 5th inning, Trout walked, as he is oft to do with our amazing offense behind him. And then Trout ran, stealing second base, looking effortless as he hustled the 90 feet. But disaster struck. That second base bag, tricky as it might be, caught Trout’s thumb as he was sliding by, and Trout grimaced in pain. Being the MVP that he is, Trout stayed in the game for another inning until he went down and took some practice swings, telling Soth he couldn’t hit. And there he went, into the clubhouse.

Phew. Actually, I’m really worried. It’s only a left thumb sprain. They say. The X-rays came back negative. They say. The Angels return home to face the Braves for Memorial Day, and it would not surprise me to see Trout out of the lineup. And it certainly is true that we’ll only know more, not only in the postgame interviews, but also after tomorrow. So we can only wait. And hope.

By the way, the Angels also tried to baseball today. Jose Urena, who does not strike out many batters, struck out the side in the first inning, and maybe that was a sign of things to come. Matt Shoemaker did not have his best stuff, missing his location a few times before Giancarlo Stanton blasted a baseball into the stratosphere.

The Angels also LOBstered, leaving the bases loaded in the 3rd AND the 4th inning. They finished with 9 LOBsters in total, a good meal for their flight back to California. Martin Maldonado (M&M) hit a two-run homer in the 4th, and the Angels were up 2-1, but they wasted plenty of chances for more. We would just have to hope that the lead held up.

It didn’t. In the 5th, Ichiro, the ageless wizard, singled in a run, and JT Riddle tattooed a baseball into right-center to put the Marlins up 4-2. Anyone notice that this stuff only happened after Trout was injured?

The Marlins added two more in the sixth and three more in the eighth, all the while with the offense sputtering towards the end. None of those extra runs mattered though, because the Angels were finished after Mike Trout left the game.

Now, I am not an editor for HH—I am only a lowly writer. But if I were, I would lift the F-bomb rule for this potgame thread. Sadly, Mayhem is away, and we can only think impure thoughts in our minds, rather than typing them on our keyboards.

But we can hope. And hope is what we shall do.