Angels Trout Ties Franchise Record
Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels hit his 299th career home run Friday night against the Houston Astros. The blast ties Trout with Tim Salmon for the Angels franchise home run record. Further, Trout scored the game-winning run in extra innings after Shohei Ohtani hit a single into right field.
Trout continues his road to 300 home runs and provides Angels fans excitement every game. As he completes this achievement, below provides a look at some of the other Angels home run leaders and more of Trout’s accomplishments this season.
Angels Home Run Leaders
Tim Salmon
Salmon spent his career with the Angels and led the franchise in home runs at 299 since retiring after the 2006 season. Salmon won the American League’s Rookie of the Year award in 1993 hitting for a .918 OPS, 31 HR, and 143 wRC+ with a 4.7 WAR. His best season came in 1995 where he hit a .330 with 1.024 OPS, and a career-high 5.8 WAR. However, these numbers failed to earn him a spot on the MLB All-Star roster and only put him seventh on the AL MVP list. Additionally, Salmon hit career highs in 1997 with 129 RBI and in 2000 with 34 home runs. He was a contributor to the Angels 2002 World Series victory hitting a key two-run home run in game two of the series.
Garret Anderson
Trout passed Garret Anderson for second on the Angels franchise home run list last season on the 23rd of July, 2019. Anderson still leads the Angels in home runs among left-handed batters and also holds franchise records in games played, at bats, hits, RBI, and grand slams among other offensive achievements. Anderson was another key member of the 2002 World Series victory and was an All-Star in 2002, 2003, and 2005, winning game MVP in 2003. He left the Angles after the 2008 season and spent time with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers before retiring at the end of the 2010 season.
Trout’s continued success
Passing Two More HOFers in WAR
ESPN.com’s Sam Miller reported earlier this week that Mike Trout passed two more Hall-of-Fame players in career WAR. In netting his 73.5 career WAR, Trout passed Larry Walker and Jim Thome. Walker, elected this year, received his nod to the Hall of Fame through a successful career on both sides of the ball. For a seven-year span, Walker ranked third in the league in OPS and gained the reputation as one of the league’s best in base running and defense. Thome, elected in 2018, retired with a 72.9 WAR. He gained his reputation as a power slugger hitting 612 home runs while maintaining a respectable walk rate of 16.9% and .276 batting average.
Miller continues in his article to remind readers that Trout accrued more WAR than any other player in history at the ages of 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, and 27. Though 2020 has not been a spectacular year for Trout, he continues to move up the career WAR leaderboard and should pass Frank Thomas before the season ends.
300 Fastest
As Mike Trout approaches 300 home runs, he will join a small class of players including Alex Rodriguez, Jimmie Foxx, Ken Griffey Jr., Andruw Jones, Albert Pujols, Mel Ott, Eddie Mathews, Mickey Mantle, and Giancarlo Stanton all to hit 300 home runs before the age of the 30. With Trout’s early career success, he should continue to join a number of other elite clubs in baseball history.
Bottomline
As the Angels look to miss the postseason yet again, Trout provides excitement for fans. Friday night’s win came after another great start by Dylan Bundy. However, the Halos bullpen could not hold on to the lead allowing Houston to tie the game in ninth inning. Fortunately, Matt Andriese kept the Angels in the game through the 10th and 11th innings allowing Trout and Ohtani to net the winning run.
The extra inning dramatics highlight the urgency for the Angels to beef up their pitching next season. The starting pitching corps has shown signs of improvement over the last eight starts, but they will need more consistency moving forward. The bullpen continues to struggle and also needs more reliability in performance. While Angels fans are reminded daily of the team’s struggles, all baseball fans continue to lose out on the opportunity to see one of the greatest players in baseball history fail to make it to the postseason.
Main Photo: Embed from Getty Images
