It has been 107 days since Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout has played in an MLB game. Trout suffered a right calf strain on May 17 -- he suffered the injury during a fairly innocuous play in which he did little more than step toward third base while at second -- and his rehab work as been slowed by continued soreness.
On Monday, Angels manager Joe Maddon acknowledged the club may shut Trout down for the rest of the regular season. The Angels have 30 games remaining and they're 9 1/2 games behind the second wild card spot. SportsLine puts their postseason odds at less than one percent. With no real shot at the postseason, it would be understandable not to rush him back.
"It's a possibility," Maddon told reporters, including Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times, when asked about shutting Trout down. "We're probably getting closer to having to say something like that. But he still wants to continue to fight, and we're going to honor his wishes. However Mike sees this, we're going to go with it that way."
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Over the last six weeks Trout has performed various baseball activities, including running the bases, though he is still experiencing soreness in the calf following his workouts. The team initially announced a 6-8 week recovery time when Trout got hurt and this is now week 15. No player has missed this much time with a calf strain in years.
"The biggest thing about it right now is his mental well-being, how he feels about now and going into the offseason," Maddon told Harris. "That's the most important thing, and then how it plays into next year."
Trout, now 30, has played in only 477 of 678 possible regular season games since 2017, or 70 percent. In addition to the calf strain this year, he also missed time with a torn thumb ligament in 2017 and wrist inflammation in 2018.
Prior to the calf injury, Trout was having a typical Trout season, hitting .333/.466/.624 with eight home runs in 36 games. This is Year 3 of the monster 12-year, $426.5 million extension Trout signed in March 2019. He is owed $35.45 million per year from 2022-30.
