ANAHEIM — Mike Trout fought back tears as he stood in front of reporters and described the latest blow to a career that has gone painfully off track.
The Angels’ three-time AL MVP center fielder learned on Tuesday that he has a torn meniscus in his left knee, which will require surgery that will cost him a significant chunk of the season. Although the Angels expect him back sometime this season, there is no timeline for how soon.
“It’s tough,” Trout said, struggling to compose himself to find the words. “It’s just frustrating, going through it.”
The injury seemingly came out of nowhere. Trout scored from second base on a wild pitch and he stole a base in a comeback win against the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night, but he felt something unusual around the third inning. It got worse overnight, and he went for an MRI exam on Tuesday morning.
This will be the fourth consecutive season that Trout has missed significant time. He missed more than four months with a strained calf in 2021, five weeks with a back injury in 2022 and three months with a fractured hamate bone in 2023. Trout played in only 237 of a potential 486 games those three seasons.
Trout, 32, is still a lock for the Hall of Fame because of all he did during the first nine full seasons of his career, but the injuries that have struck him over the last four have been devastating.
“Nobody wants to play more than Mike,” General Manager Perry Minasian said. “He loves this. He wakes up thinking about it. He goes to bed thinking about it. He eats, sleeps and breathes baseball. I really feel for him, but this is a team. Good teams, guys step up. No matter who is out, we’re going to stick together.”
The Angels announced the signing of veteran outfielder Kevin Pillar hours after the Trout news broke. Pillar, 35, a veteran of 12 major league seasons, began this season with the Chicago White Sox but elected free agency over the weekend.
Pillar hit .160 with a .650 OPS the White Sox in 17 games this season. He hit .228 with a .664 OPS with the Atlanta Braves last season. Pillar had a .734 OPS last season against left-handed pitchers, which could make him a good platoon partner with Mickey Moniak, who has struggled to hit lefties.
Manager Ron Washington said Moniak will “get a lot of playing time” in center field, but he stopped short of saying Moniak would play “every day.”
The Angels also could put Jo Adell in center field, and Washington even mentioned Luis Rengifo getting some opportunity there.
All of this was a shocking turn of events, another bit of adversity piled on to an Angels team that was predicted to finish fourth in its first season since Shohei Ohtani departed as a free agent – and that was before an 11-19 start that raised the question of whether they would be even worse than predicted.
Trout was off to a hot start in terms of homers, blasting a major-league leading 10, but recently he’d been slumping. Trout was hitting .220, including 3 for 25 with runners in scoring position.
Trout said the recent slump had nothing to do with his knee, which didn’t bother him until Monday.
“I don’t know (what caused it),” Trout said. “You can guess, try to pinpoint what play it’s from. I play the game hard and (stuff) happens.”
Trout said his first inkling was when he was running off the field in the third inning on Monday.
“I was running in to the dugout and I felt like a little bit of ache in my knee,” Trout said. “Nothing serious. I was like, that was weird. Didn’t think anything of it. Then I was hitting and running. Didn’t feel anything. Scoring from second, nothing.
“After doing activity, when I sat down and got back up, that’s when I started feeling it. I mentioned something in the seventh or eighth inning to the (medical staff), just to give them a heads up, just to make sure it wasn’t anything crazy.”
Trout said he had trouble sleeping on Monday night, and on Tuesday morning he told the Angels that he needed to get it checked, so he underwent an MRI that showed the torn meniscus.
Trout said he’s not sure when he’ll have the surgery, but his understanding is it’s “a pretty simple procedure.”
In the meantime, the Angels will do the best they can to get by without him.
“We’ll never replace Mike, never,” Washington said. “But whoever goes out there and we have to put in that lineup, I just want him to be who he is, and do what he can do.”
The Angels, 10 years removed from their last postseason appearance, had already lost Anthony Rendon indefinitely to a torn hamstring earlier this month. The $245 million third baseman also has been sidelined for major portions of the past four consecutive seasons by an array of injuries.
Trout and Rendon are by far the Angels’ two highest-paid players, each making more than $37 million this season. They combined to play in only 385 of a potential 972 games from 2021 to 2023.
NOTES
The Angels called up left-hander Amir Garrett and sent down right-hander Davis Daniel. They did not announce the corresponding 40-man roster move to clear a spot for Garrett, who was on a minor league deal at Triple-A. Garrett is a veteran of seven major league seasons. He was in spring training with the San Francisco Giants before he was released this spring. Garrett had a 2.45 ERA in eight games at Triple-A, with 10 strikeouts and four walks in 7⅓ innings. …
In order to create 40-man roster spots for Pillar and Garrett, the Angels moved right-hander Chase Silseth (elbow inflammation) and infielder Michael Stefanic (strained quadriceps) to the 60-day injured list. Silseth recently began playing light catch. He would now be eligible to be activated in early June. Stefanic has been running, taking ground balls and hitting in Arizona. He would be eligible in late May.
UP NEXT
Phillies (RHP Zack Wheeler, 2-3, 1.93 ERA) at Angels (LHP Patrick Sandoval, 1-4, 6.33 ERA), Wednesday, 1:07 p.m., Bally Sports West, 830 AM
