After a terrible period in late April and early May, the Angels lineup is starting to show some life, even though their star player isn’t playing. Mike Trout is recovering slowly from a left knee injury, and no one is certain when he will return. In addition to Trout’s absence, certain batting order members are just not performing up to par. The Angels’ largest offseason addition for a position player has recently been a very disappointing one.
In their second game against the Athletics, Ron Washington told Jeff Fletcher that benching Jorge Soler, his primary DH, helped him “think a little bit and work on what he’s trying to get done.” It is May, and Soler is slashing. 18:8 K:BB with a 158/.262/.228/.490 ratio. When a hitter of Soler’s talent has a worse SLG than OBP over a lengthy period of time, you know things are not going well. The team’s OPS of.490 is the second-worst in May, just behind Kyren Paris’.483.
LA Angels need to have a tough conversation about their designated hitter
On April 30, which also happened to be Trout’s final game before suffering a knee injury, Soler led the Angels in extra base hits and finished with the fourth-highest OPS. Trout’s 3-hole was cleaned up by Soler, who may be the biggest villain due to his absence from the lineup. In May, he saw 50% non-fastballs, which ties him with Luis Rengifo as the Angels hitter who saw the most of those pitch categories during that time.In May, Soler has the lowest average exit velocity (86.7 mph) and the lowest proportion of balls hit at 95 mph or more. He established himself in this league by hitting balls hard, so this decline in output is concerning to say the least.
Hopefully, Soler will get the same lift that Taylor Ward had when Washington gave him some time to iron out his issues. Perhaps Soler will be able to take live blood pressure off of a minor league pitcher that the Angels bring in! Who knows what they’ll decide to do with the DH they owe an additional $13 million to next year if Wash’s magic with Soler doesn’t work.
