'Some things finally clicked': Trout breaks dry spell with 2-HR game

ANAHEIM -- After finding himself in a 1-for-22 funk with 14 strikeouts, Angels superstar Mike Trout responded by homering in consecutive at-bats against the Giants on Saturday.

Trout connected on a pair of solo homers and nearly came through with a game-tying blast in the ninth, only for it to fall just short at the warning track in a 3-2 loss in front of a sold-out crowd at Angel Stadium. But it still marked his 28th career multihomer game and his second this season.

Trout, a three-time AL MVP and 11-time All-Star, is now up to eight homers on the year, tied for second in the Majors behind just Tyler Soderstrom’s nine.

Trout nearly tied Soderstrom in dramatic fashion in the ninth, smacking a 3-2 slider from right-hander Ryan Walker a projected 384 feet to left for a long out. It left the bat at 100.8 mph and would've been a homer in 15 out of 30 parks, per Statcast.

“I knew I hit it off the end of the bat but I thought it had a chance,” Trout said. “It's tough early in the season, the marine layer comes in. I was just happy my swing tonight was a lot better than the last couple days.”

It’s still been mostly all or nothing at the plate for Trout this year, however, as he’s slashing .189/.279/.527 with a double, two stolen bases and 16 RBIs through his first 20 games. Of his 14 hits, only five have been singles this season.

His first homer was absolutely demolished, as he jumped all over a hanging curveball from right-hander Landen Roupp in the fourth inning. It left the bat at 115.4 mph, making it the third-hardest hit homer by Trout since Statcast was introduced in 2015. His hardest was 116.8 mph and came on May 2, 2018 and his second-hardest was 115.5 mph on April 20, 2021.

“Me and the hitting guys have been grinding,” Trout said. “It's nice some things finally clicked.”

Trout clobbered another solo blast in the sixth on an 0-1 changeup from Roupp to bring the Angels within one run. It was roped down the left-field line, leaving the bat at 108.7 mph and traveling a projected 381 feet.

“The only guy that could get something done was Mike,” manager Ron Washington said. “Wish we would have had some guys on the bag in front of him. It would have made a difference. But he was our offense tonight.”

Nolan Schanuel had the chance to be a hero with the tying run at second -- after Logan O’Hoppe grounded out having swung at a 3-0 sinker that saw Matt Chapman fall down at third base but still make the throw to first from his knees. But he flew out to center to end the game.

The offense has been scuffling since their series win in Tampa Bay, as they haven’t scored more than four runs in any of their past eight games. They’ve averaged just 2.1 runs per game over their last eight contests, going 2-6 over that stretch.

“It's obvious, we're not putting runs on board,” Washington said. “We're not sustaining innings. So we just got to get to the point where we start sustaining innings. Once we do that, we’ll be fine.”

But it was still a good sign for Trout, who has had some bad luck at the plate this season. His batting average on balls in play was just .133 coming into Saturday, which is much lower than his career BABIP of .341.

Advanced statistics paint a better picture of Trout’s performance, as his expected batting average based on his exit velocity and launch angle is .263, which ranks in the 64th percentile, and his expected slugging percentage is .596, which ranks in the 93rd percentile. He has a barrel percentage of 16 percent, which is in the 86th percentile, while his hard-hit rate is 48 percent, which is in the 72nd percentile.

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Trout said he’s noticed that tough luck and even was shown a stat about it after the game.

“It’s funny you say that because I was on the iPad and there was a stat they were showing me but I don’t know what it was,” Trout said. “But I just have to get up there and get myself in a good position to hit and hit the ball hard. I felt like, especially on the road trip, the last few games I hit the ball hard but just right at people. That’s baseball.”