Angels’ Trout details a ‘frustrating’ year cut short
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Mike Trout, typically as composed as anybody in his profession, was visibly emotional while talking about his recent string of injuries Monday, one day after Los Angeles Angels manager Phil Nevin declared that Trout would not return from his recent hand injury in time to play again this season.
Trout, on a trajectory to being one of the greatest players in baseball history as recently as 2020, has played in fewer than half of the Angels’ games over the past three years.
His tally this year will be 82.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Trout said, visibly shaken. “I wanted to get back. It’s tough. It’s been hard.”
Trout, 32, won three American League MVP awards within his first eight full seasons and finished as the runner-up in four other instances. But a torn calf muscle kept him off the field beyond the middle of May in 2021. In 2022, he missed a little more than a month around midseason because of a troublesome back issue. His goal entering 2023 was simply to remain healthy.
“I hired a ton of people to work on my body,” Trout said. “My body felt great. A freak thing happened and I broke my hand.”
Trout suffered a fracture to the hamate bone on the bottom part of his left hand while completing a swing in San Diego on July 3. He pushed to come back seven weeks later, on Aug. 22, with the Angels still on the fringes of contention, but his hand didn’t respond favorably. He played in one game before returning to the injured list and will not be activated again, his season ending with a .263/.367/.490 slash line and 18 home runs.
“When I came back, I was in pain,” Trout said. “My swing wasn’t right. Just wasn’t myself. I was taking it day-to-day, trying for the soreness and just the discomfort to go away. It never did. Now, giving it a few extra days off, it’s going away. I’m starting my swing process. I’ve been swinging. I’m not going to come back, but I wanted to. I just wanted to get my head straight for the offseason, clear my mind. Just have a healthy offseason.”
This offseason will come with more questions than ever for Trout and the Angels. Trout has seven years and nearly $250 million remaining on the mega-extension he signed heading into the 2019 season, and there are questions throughout the industry about whether he and the Angels might actually part ways.
Trout’s age and recent injury history — not to mention the fact that he has the right to block any trade — would make it exceedingly difficult to move his contract. But former teammates have wondered recently if Trout has reached a tipping point and might ask Angels owner Arte Moreno, team president John Carpino and general manager Perry Minasian to work out a trade this offseason. Trout gave no indications that was the case while addressing the media Monday, but he also didn’t necessarily dispel the notion.
He is expected to meet with the front office to talk about the team’s direction in the near future.
“These conversations happen every year, not just this year,” Trout said. “They’re private conversations I have with the front office — John and Perry, all those guys up there. So just keep it as that. The plan, as it always is, is to take a couple weeks off in the offseason, clear my mind, get in shape, get ready to play and go from there.”
Trout provided a similar answer when asked if he wants to see it through with the Angels, saying: “I go through this every year. That’s private conversations I have with Arte and John, and I’m doing the same thing I did last, what, 13 years, just go into the offseason, clear my mind, get ready for spring and, you know, wearing an Angels uniform in spring.”
The Angels began the final week of the regular season with a 70-86 record, having already clinched their eighth consecutive losing season to set a franchise record.
The Angels went on a run early in the second half to vault back into contention, at which point the front office decided not to trade Shohei Ohtani and instead augment an ailing roster by dealing away prospects from a relatively thin farm system. The Angels then went 8-19 during a nightmarish August, a month that saw Ohtani suffer a torn ulnar collateral ligament that prematurely ended his season as a pitcher. Ohtani, whose season as a hitter ended with an oblique injury, will soon enter free agency and is widely expected to sign elsewhere.
“People ask me this all the time, ‘Where’s Shohei going to go?’ Couldn’t tell you. It’s up to him,” Trout said. “You got to ask him. Ultimately it comes down to his decision. He hasn’t said anything to me. He keeps it quiet, just does his own stuff. As another teammate, I think just give him his privacy. It’s his decision. He’s going to do what’s right for him. We’ll see how that goes.”
The Angels are expected to do everything possible to re-sign Ohtani. But they’re burdened by their commitment with Anthony Rendon, who has played in just 148 games over the past three years and is owed another $114 million over the next three. Young players such as catcher Logan O’Hoppe, shortstop Zach Neto, first baseman Nolan Schanuel and outfielder Mickey Moniak have emerged this season, but the Angels would nonetheless have a litany of holes to fill throughout their roster this offseason if they hope to try to contend next year.
Of utmost importance is for Trout to get healthy.
Nobody feels that more than him.
“I just want to be out there,” Trout said. “Injuries suck. All the hard work and stuff and just freak stuff happens. I try to stay positive.”
All signs pointed to the Florida Panthers finishing off the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 4, but the Canes kept the series rolling with a 3-0 win on Monday.
Will the Panthers finish the story in Game 5? Or will the Hurricanes send the festivities back to South Florida again?
Here are matchup notes heading into Wednesday’s Game 5 from ESPN Research, as well as betting intel from ESPN BET:
More on Game 4: Recap | Grades
Matchup notes
Florida Panthers at Carolina Hurricanes
Game 5 | 8 p.m. ET | TNT
The Panthers’ odds to win the series are now -1600, adjusted from -5000 heading into Game 4. The Hurricanes’ odds have shifted to +750 (adjusted from +1500) after their win. The Panthers’ odds to win the Cup are now +105 (previously -110), while the Canes’ are now +1800. Sergei Bobrovsky is the leading Conn Smythe candidate in this series at +200, followed by Aleksander Barkov (+800).
Game 4 was the Canes’ first win in the round since Game 7 of the 2006 Eastern Conference finals against the Buffalo Sabres, snapping a 15-game conference finals losing streak. It was the longest losing streak in NHL playoff history for a team in the round preceding the Stanley Cup Final. The Hurricanes are now 4-4 all-time in Game 4s when trailing 3-0 in a best-of-seven series.
Frederik Andersen made 20 saves for his fifth career playoff shutout, his second with the Hurricanes. He joins Cam Ward (four), Kevin Weekes (two) and Petr Mrazek (two) as goaltenders with multiple playoff shutouts in Whalers/Hurricanes Stanley Cup playoffs history.
Carolina’s Logan Stankoven scored playoff goal No. 5 in the second period. He joins Erik Cole (six in 2002) and Warren Foegele (five in 2019) as the only rookies in Whalers/Hurricanes history to score at least five goals in a single Stanley Cup playoffs year.
Sebastian Aho scored an empty-net goal in the third period, his 32nd career playoff tally. That extends his own franchise record for career goals in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Panthers were shut out for the second time this postseason; both games were at home — the other instance was Game 6 of the second-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Florida went 0-4 on the power play in Game 4, and the team is now 0-8 with the man advantage in the last two games of this series after going 4-for-5 in Games 1 and 2.
Though he hasn’t scored a goal in the past two games, Sam Bennett has a team-leading nine this postseason. That is two shy of the franchise record in a single playoff year, currently held by Matthew Tkachuk (2023) and Carter Verhaeghe (2024).
Scoring leaders
GP: 16 | G: 6 | A: 9
GP: 14 | G: 5 | A: 9
Houston Astros right-hander Ronel Blanco will have surgery on his right elbow and will miss the remainder of the 2025 season, the team announced Wednesday.
The starter had sought a second opinion after being placed on the injured list last week with inflammation in the elbow.
The Astros said Blanco — who is 3-4 with a 4.10 ERA, 48 strikeouts and 20 walks in nine starts this season — is anticipated to return at some point during the 2026 season.
Blanco, 31, is among a long list of starting pitchers on the injured list for the Astros. Right-hander Hayden Wesneski underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery last week, while right-hander Spencer Arrighetti has been out since April after breaking his right thumb in a batting practice mishap.
Houston is also without right-handers Luis Garcia and Cristian Javier, who are both still recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Blanco is in his fourth major league season, all with the Astros. In 2024, he finished 13-6 with a 2.80 ERA in 30 games (29 starts). He threw his only career complete game in his season debut on April 1, no-hitting the Toronto Blue Jays in a 10-0 win.
The Associated Press and Field Level Media contributed to this report.
The Breeders’ Cup world championships are returning to New York in 2027 at the rebuilt Belmont Park, following a massive renovation project to revitalize one of the most important horse racing tracks in the country.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, along with officials from the Breeders’ Cup and the New York Racing Association, announced Wednesday that the track on the edge of Queens and Nassau County on Long Island will stage the event in the fall two years from now.
“We wrote the governor of New York a letter in 2023 that simply said, ‘If you build it, we will come,'” Breeders’ Cup Limited president and CEO Drew Fleming said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “And so we’re very honored to keep our word and have a wonderful Breeders’ Cup world championship here in 2027 to showcase the new development and investment in Belmont Park to our fans from across the globe.”
Keeneland in Lexington was revealed as the 2026 host.
Belmont Park was last home to the Breeders’ Cup in 2005, the fourth time in two decades after also being there in 1990, 1995 and 2001. A goal of the $455 million teardown and reconstruction was to attract the major event.
“It was always part of the plan: We weren’t going to redevelop Belmont Park without Breeders’ Cup in mind, so it was always part of the initial goals,” NYRA president and CEO David O’Rourke told the AP by phone. “Getting the championships back to New York is big from an economic point of view and probably one of the most important [things], if not the most important. It gives our trainers and horsemen a chance to compete on their home tracks. I think it’s great. It’s been over 20 years.”
Hochul said in a statement that the redevelopment is bringing thousands of jobs and $1 billion in long-term economic activity to Long Island.
“Thanks to the investments we are making at Belmont Park, the long held dream of bringing the prestigious Breeders’ Cup back to New York will soon be a reality,” Hochul said.
The Breeders’ Cup has been at a Kentucky or California track every year since 2008. Del Mar outside San Diego has it this year as a back-to-back host and for the fourth time since 2017.
Santa Anita outside Los Angeles, Keeneland and Churchill Downs in Louisville — home of the Kentucky Derby — have become the regular sites for the two-day festival featuring the best thoroughbreds in the world and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of races. It’s shifting back to the Eastern time zone for the next two years.
“California is and has always been a wonderful spot to have the Breeders’ Cup with Santa Anita Park and Del Mar, but one of the missions of the Breeders’ Cup is to grow the sport, and one of the ways we do this is hosting world championships at various venues across the United States,” Fleming said, adding that he expects the event to generate $100 million for the New York economy.
While NYRA has not announced a location for the 2026 Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown is set to return to its old home by 2027, after a multiyear stint at historic Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York during renovations.
With the Belmont at Belmont Park shifting back to an annual occurrence, it is possible the track known for greats like Secretariat and Seattle Slew rumbling down the stretch to the finish line with fans roaring might get back in a regular rotation.
“The best part about working for the Breeders’ Cup is that nothing is off the table,” Fleming said. “New York City has some of the finest accommodations and restaurants and entertainment in the world, so it’d be a natural fit that we would be at Belmont Park frequently.”
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