With no room in the Los Angeles Angels outfield, erstwhile top prospect Jo Adell returned to Triple-A to begin the regular season, and he's doing what he always does in Triple-A: rake. Adell went deep for the fifth straight game Saturday night on his 24th birthday, and on Sunday he pushed that streak to a franchise record six straight games.
Here is Adell's sixth home run in as many games, this one off Albuquerque reliever Will Gaddis:
"I've done a really good job of controlling what I'm looking for," Adell told MLB.com after going deep in his fourth straight game Friday. "That's been a theme for a while: continuing to hone in on that zone, being okay with taking some strikes and if it's not where I want it, just give it a pass."
Adell first reached Triple-A as a 20-year-old in 2019 and he's always dominated at that level. He's a career .274/.344/.563 hitter with 47 doubles and 41 home runs in 148 Triple-A games, and that's not counting Sunday's outputs. The command of the strike zone is lacking though; Adell has struck out 207 times in those 148 games. This year he'd fanned nine times in eight Triple-A games coming into Sunday.
The Angels acquired Hunter Renfroe over the winter, pushing Adell out of the big league outfield -- he wasn't supplanting Mike Trout or Taylor Ward, obviously -- and back down to Triple-A. He went 11 for 48 (.229) with four home runs in spring training. Adell doesn't have much to prove at Triple-A at this point, but the Angels have nowhere else to play him.
Adell is a career .215/.260/.356 hitter with 194 strikeouts and only 26 walks in 161 MLB games. He has considerable power, but he's been held back by chronic plate indiscipline. From 2019-20, Adell was a consensus top 10 prospect in baseball.
