MRI could mean bad news for Upton
Outfielder has been frustrated all season. Indians complete sweep in Anaheim.
CLEVELAND 4
ANGELS 3
Justin Upton isn’t so much concerned about a potential knee injury as he is frustrated that it could mean another disheartening turn in a tumultuous season.
The Angels left fielder underwent an MRI on Wednesday to determine what is wrong with the right knee that has been bothering him since the Angels traveled to Chicago last week to play the White Sox. By the time the Angels lost 4-3 to the Cleveland Indians to mark their 80th defeat of the season, Upton had neither learned what caused his injury nor the results of the imaging.
An unfavorable verdict would pile on the disappointment Upton has experienced this year. The streaky-hitting 32-year-old missed the first 72 games of the season while recovering from a severe toe sprain, sustained when he stubbed his left big toe on the outfield wall during the exhibition Freeway Series on March 25. The injury occurred about a week after Upton made his spring training debut, which had been delayed by right knee tendinitis.
Upton had never missed so much time because of injury. The lack of repetitions had a negative effect on his offense: He has batted .215 with 12 home runs and a .724 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 63 games. Outside of a 10-game stretch in which he went 10 for 32 with a gaudy 1.113 OPS from Aug. 9 to Aug. 19, Upton has barely resembled the hitter the Angels signed to a five-year, $106-million contract before the 2018 season.
Upton has flailed in his last 18 games, hitting .177 with two doubles and three home runs. He has swung at nearly 26% of pitches outside of the zone, which isn’t unusual for him. But he is making far less successful contact on those swings, about 49% of the time since Aug. 20.
He made 10% more contact in such instances last year, when he had an .808 OPS in 145 games. It was his second straight year with an OPS above .800.
“It’s just the culmination of everything, I guess,” Upton said. “It’s not fun. But I’ve just got to deal with it.” Angels lose
Shohei Ohtani hit the hardest home run of his young major league career, Kole Calhoun extended his career-high with his 29th long ball of the season, but the plummeting Angels did not finagle a victory away from the Indians on Wednesday night. They were swept at Angel Stadium for the second time this season. They have been swept eight times overall.
Angels starter Dillon Peters continued to struggle. He gave up four runs in three-plus innings. He could not master any of his pitches well enough to receive firstpitch strikes, getting only eight in the 17 hitters.
“It’s just a lack of getting ahead of hitters and doing my job, which is get as deep into the ballgame as I can,” Peters said. “I have not been able to do that as of late. It’s embarrassing. I work my tail off between starts to be consistent and pound the zone and do what the team asks me to do.”
Command was not Peters’ only problem. Balks were called on him in the first and second innings. He accidentally started a windup with a runner on base in each occurrence.
Peters has surrendered 22 runs, 18 of them earned, in his last 221⁄3 innings spanning five starts. Hitters have pelted him for 11 doubles, one triple and six home runs since this poor stretch began Aug. 19.
“The frustrating fact is I’m not doing what I’m asked to do and that’s go deep into ballgames, turn the lineup over, and get to the next inning and get as deep into the game as I can and save the bullpen and keep the team in the game,” Peters said. “In the first two innings my last few outings, it hasn’t been easy to battle back the remainder of the game. This is all on me.”
The Indians didn’t score after the second inning. Peters retired the final six batters he faced. Relievers Noe Ramirez, Miguel Del Pozo, Keynan Middleton, Luis Garcia, Ty Buttrey and Hansel Robles worked scoreless outings. But the Angels offense, which has sputtered as Mike Trout has sat out because of nerve irritation in his right foot, could not capitalize. David Fletcher hit an RBI single in the second, Ohtani blasted a 114.4-mph solo shot to right field in the fifth and Calhoun smoked a pitch from Indians reliever Tyler Clippard into the rock pile at center-field in the eighth.
Reliever Cam Bedrosian will not return from a right forearm strain this season.