The Los Angeles Angels will enter familiar, but unwanted, territory on Friday: playing with superstar Mike Trout on the injured list.
Trout will be placed on the IL ahead of the second contest of a four-game series against the Detroit Tigers in Anaheim, Calif.
The three-time American League MVP hurt his left knee trying to beat out an infield grounder Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners, hitting the first base bag hard with his left foot and appearing to jam his knee.
It’s the same knee that Trout injured last season, resulting in surgery to repair a torn meniscus and limiting him to 29 games. Trout started all 29 of the Angels’ games this season before sitting out on Thursday as Detroit rallied for a 10-4 win.
Manager Ron Washington announced following the Thursday game that Trout sustained no structural injury but that the team still would make a roster move.
“He has a bone bruise so we’re going to put him on the IL,” Washington said after his team’s sixth consecutive defeat. “It’s not significant, but he needs rest.”
Trout initially stayed in Wednesday’s game and played in the field for one inning before being lifted for a pinch hitter.
“When I started jogging in the outfield a little bit, I started feeling it a little more,” Trout said. “Wanted to be smart about it. … When it happened, it was just a weird feeling. After getting treatment stuff, it actually feels a little better. Hopefully, it’s just a little scar tissue breaking up.”
Trout, who is hitting .179 with nine homers, 18 RBIs and a .727 OPS, played in more than 82 games only once in the previous five seasons.
Right-hander Jose Soriano (2-4, 4.50 ERA) will start for Trout-less Los Angeles on Friday. He has struggled of late, losing each of his past three starts while allowing 12 runs, 11 earned, and 23 hits in 14 innings (7.07 ERA).
Soriano has faced the Tigers twice in his career, both times in relief in 2023. He threw a total of three innings, allowing one run, which was unearned, and taking a loss.
Tigers ace Tarik Skubal (3-2, 2.34 ERA) will make his seventh start of the season. The left-hander did not allow a run in three of his previous four starts, permitting a total of two runs in 24 innings (0.75 ERA).
Skubal, who is coming off a unanimous selection as the American League Cy Young Award winner, relies heavily on a changeup to complement his upper-90s fastball.
“It just makes him incredibly difficult to time up,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “I mean, the fastball alone, if he just threw all fastballs, he’d be hard to time up, but the fact that he can disrupt timing with the changeup. … It’s an exceptional pitch for his arsenal, because it rounds it out to being a dominant type of arsenal.”
Skubal also attacks the strike zone, having walked only five batters and struck out 40 in 34 2/3 innings this season. While he led the majors with 228 strikeouts last year, he walked just 35 hitters in 192 innings, an average of 1.6 walks per nine innings.
He is 1-1 with a 1.98 ERA in two career starts versus the Angels.
The Tigers have won two games in a row and six of their past eight.
–Field Level Media
