The Los Angeles Angels got a major scare when Mike Trout was hit on the hand, but X-rays turned out to be negative.
The Los Angeles Angels got an impressive win yesterday against the Seattle Mariners, but the 8-7 victory in 11 innings also came with a scare when outfielder Mike Trout got hit on the hand on a fastball from Mariners reliever Casey Legumina.
The pitch hit the protective covering on Trout’s left hand, and the impact forced him to leave teh game. The pitch registered at 94.2 mph, according to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, and the impact was so loud that the Mariners actually issued a challenge because they thought the result might have been a foul ball.
Trout walked to first base after shaking off the injury, which caused him to double over for a moment, and after talking to trainer Mike Frostad and manager Kurt Suzuki, he was replaced by pinch runner Oswald Peraza, who stayed in the game at second and contributed a key sacrifice bunt in the 11th inning.
Trout’s hand was swollen, and he was also visibly frustrated after the game, according to Bollinger, although X-rays proved negative and he’s now considered day-to-day.
“After looking at how swollen it got, it scared me,” Trout said. “So I’m just relieved it’s not broken.”
Trout was also borderline targeted multiple times by the Mariners, who were clearly trying to pitch inside against the Angels resurgent superstar. Seattle starter Brian Woo buzzed Trout twice in the first inning on Friday night, and Woo’s second pitch hit Trout just above his left bicep.
Given what happened yesterday, it’s surprising there wasn’t a more dramatic incident between the two teams, and Trout said the Mariners need to do a better job of locating.
“We know where they're trying to get me out, fastballs up and in, so it's just frustrating,” Trout said. “You know, if you can't control it up there, you shouldn't do it. So it is what it is."
Trout added that Woo did apologize later in Friday’s game after he ran near the mound after a foul ball later in the game, but there was some passive-aggressive baseball justice when Angels starter Reid Detmers threw behind Mariners star Julio Rodriguez after Trout was hit. Detmers, of course, said he yanked the pitch “by accident.”
There hasn’t been any bad blood between the two teams since 2022, according to Bollinger, when Trout was hit by a pitch and a bench-clearing incident followed after the Angels retaliated. That’s partly because the Angels haven’t been all that competitive lately, but yesterday’s game featured plenty of exciting comebacks as the two teams battled back and forth.
Suzuki definitely knows what this was all about. He was a catcher for 16 years in the big leagues, so he’s familiar with the ins and outs of this kind of incident.
“Balls slip,” Suzuki said. “It's baseball. Like I said the other night, it's part of the game. Obviously, you don't want him to get hit. Or see Mike get hurt. But at the same time, you understand, I was a catcher, that they‘re trying to get guys out.”