By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.blogspot.com/2018/05/somehow-trout-still-brings-shock-value.html
Mike Trout, laying the Yankees to waste
Saturday night.Sometimes it gets to the point where you take Mike Trout's greatness for granted. The best all-around player in the game?
Wake me when he isn't, never mind it might be another several years, yet. Busting games wide open?
Been there, done that. Yanking the Angels from behind?
Big deal. He's in the Most Valuable Player Award conversation?
C'mon, he's in it routinely every season, almost.
Even hitting an earlier-season 1-for-22 slump didn't have anybody worried. They just knew that, for anyone else, that's a portent for disaster, but for Trout it's just a temporary traffic jam.
Then he does something that even he's never done before, prompting you to shake your head and try to remind yourself that he's been there, done that, often enough that it's as natural as coffee at your breakfast table. Except that, until Saturday night, even Trout hadn't done what he did to the Yankees in the Yankees' playpen.
Every time you think the Jersey boy's lost his capacity for shock value, he finds it.
Four extra base hits, one infield single letting him remind you he's got some speed, four runs batted in, eleven total bases, and a 5-for-5 night. One bomb and three doubles. It was almost an afterthought that he'd tied the Red Sox's Mookie Betts for the major leagues' home run lead at 17, making what one writer said was the home run race as a mirror of the league MVP race.
And this was on a night Aaron Judge---beating Ryan Howard by two games as the fastest man in baseball ever to get to 70 career homers---put the Angels in a 2-1 hole in the first inning with a mammoth rip into the right center field pavilion. After Trout opened the game putting the Angels on the board, 1-0, with an RBI double banging off the left field wall.
Next time up, Trout shot a liner the other way into the right field corner to set up second and third. Next time up, with a man on third, he hit one out to put the Angels up 5-4. Next time up, Trout drove one into the left center field gap for an RBI double. Next time up, he grounded one so deep in the hole behind third base that Yankee shortstop Didi Gregorius could have fired to first with a cannon and missed Trout by a step and a half.
When the Angels finished the Saturday night massacre, 11-4, people probably rubbed their eyes learning it was the first 5-for-5 game of Trout's career. Including maybe Trout himself, who'd only been 7-for-34 lifetime against Yankee starter Sonny Gray before he checked in at the plate for the first time.
"I just felt like I was seeing a good pitch to hit and not missing it," he told Fox Sports's Ken Rosenthal at one point during the evening. "I faced him a lot when he was in Oakland. I kinda knew all his pitches, he's a tough pitcher. I went to bat every time out there against him."
Gray hasn't exactly been as tough as advertised this season, and he knows it. "I think the stuff was good, just the results weren't," he said after the game ended. "I don't think I got a leadoff hitter out all night, and that can make for a long game for a starter. He's an unbelievable player, and I think he kind of showed that tonight."
Yankee manager Aaron Boone admitted he was overwhelmingly tempted to walk Trout in the fourth, when Trout stepped in with first base open and Kole Calhoun (leadoff walk) on third after a followup single. (Angels rookie catcher Jose Briceno got himself thrown out trying to stretch it to second.) He probably should have given in to temptation. The only thing making it palatable was that this wasn't Tommy Lasorda letting Tom Niedenfeuer pitch to Jack Clark with first base open and the Dodgers one out from a World Series.
"Yeah," he said. "But I just felt like at that point in the fourth inning, they're starting to turn the lineup over again, and if we walk him he probably ends up at second. So we're basically at that point putting the go-ahead run on second. So not really. If we had gone to like 3-0 or something we would have put him on, but otherwise, no."
Just as Jack the Ripper ruined Lasorda and Niedenfeuer with a three-run homer for which the Dodgers had no answer and an early winter vacation start, Trout ruined Boone and Gray. Gray fed him a 2-1 slider toward the low outside corner, and Trout fed it into the left field bleachers. All for the love of the Yankees trying to duck second and third on a possible stolen base. Angels manager Mike Scioscia's only regret might have been that it didn't mean the pennant in the end.
After hitting Justin Upton with a pitch, Gray's night was over and, two innings later, the Angels decided Yankee reliever Tommy Kahnle was ripe for immediate use, misuse, and abuse.
First, Briceno, playing in his first major league game ever, wrung out a leadoff walk after falling into the 0-2 hole early. Zack Cozart might have forced him out at second, but Yankee second baseman Gleyber Torres committed an error that would cost the Yankees big, on a night his streak of four straight games with a home run ended.
Up stepped Trout. And home came Briceno, who would hit a two-run homer in the seventh to seal the scoring. After a walk, Albert Pujols singled home Cozart and Trout, before Chris Young scored while Shohei Ohtani whacked into a double play.
All this on a night rookie Angels starter Jaime Barria had to shake off back-to-back first inning homers by Judge and Brett Gardner just prior. He gave the Angels five decent innings before handing off to a bullpen that threw one-hit ball at the Yankees the rest of the night.
But nobody else really cared about that. Or, about Briceno's splendid game after labouring eight long enough years in the minors. Or, even, about Judge's milestone mash. Or, even, about Greg Bird returning to the Yankees from the disabled list, forcing the Yankees into the dubious decision to send their super utility man Ronald Torreyes down to Triple-A Scranton.
The Yankee clubhouse wasn't exactly in a great mood when Torreyes proved the sacrificial lamb. Then Trout came out and made lamb chops out of them while having a career night in a career loaded enough with them. Or so everyone thought.
What's next for Trout? The projections have him on pace for---read carefully---fifty home runs, 140 runs scored, maybe 105-110 runs batted in, a .461 on-base percentage for the season (that's his OBP right now, and it leads the league, as do his 48 walks), and maybe finishing the season with the .687 slugging percentage he now has.
Trout already has 4.9 wins above a replacement level player, too, and that leads the league. For anyone else, that's a season, and a respectable one at that. He could end up with 12 WAR or better, maybe even enough to tie Babe Ruth's 14.1 in 1923; he's easily on pace to lead the league in WAR for the fifth time in his seven-season-and-counting career.
At this writing,
Baseball Reference figures the most similar batter to Trout through his age 26 season is Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. The next three to whom he's most similar are three more Hall of Famers: Ken Griffey, Jr., Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron.
Betts through his age 25 season isn't traveling in company quite that distinguished:
BR says his most-similar hitter through age 25 is Grady Sizemore, with Hall of Famer Duke Snider right behind, followed by Del Ennis and Jack Clark. That's not exactly ugly company, unless you count the injuries that killed Sizemore's career, but that's not a four-pack of Hall of Famers, either.
Every time you think Trout can't get any better than he already is, he finds ways to disabuse you. The only thing missing on his resume is a 5-for-5 day or night on which all five hits are home runs. But would it shock you if he does
that before his career is over?
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