As the Angels' season of unrealized expectations continues, here's one truth they should accept now: Mark Trumbo needs to play.
Every day.
There should be no more platooning, no more moving him from left field to right field to third base to designated hitter. Give him a regular defensive position and put him in the lineup.
Trumbo is the team's only dangerous hitter, at least for the moment. While Albert Pujols and Kendrys Morales and Howie Kendrick struggle at the plate, Trumbo is flourishing.
In the Angels' stunning 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday, Trumbo and pitcher Jerome Williams had the only positive performances. But their combined efforts were washed away by Jordan Walden's blown save and Brandon Allen's pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the ninth.
Things can't get much worse for the Angels, who lost their fourth game in a row, were swept by the Rays and now have won just one of five series they've played this season.
Whatever ails them — right now, you could point a finger at a lifeless offense that can't seem to muster clutch hitting — there is little doubt that Trumbo has proven he should be in the everyday lineup. Manager Mike Scioscia has started him at third base, first base, left field, right field and designated hitter, and despite never knowing where he's going to play — or if he's going to play — Trumbo has delivered.
Thursday, he started in right field for the second time this season. He hit a game-tying home run in the fifth inning and a double in the sixth that drove in the go-ahead run. He finished the day 2 for 4 with two RBI and two runs scored. He leads the team in batting average (.342) and slugging average (.632), is tied for the lead in RBI (8) and is second behind Vernon Wells in home runs (3).
Yet for all that, he hasn't been a regular starter. Scioscia, in an effort to give his players a sense of comfort early in the season, has used his entire roster. That's why he's had 17 different starting lineups in 19 games. Trumbo was expected to ease into the third base job, but after he made two errors in the first three games of the season, Scioscia scaled back those plans.
As a result, Trumbo has been shifted from position to position, all while coming to the ballpark early to work on aspects of his fielding at third base. But maybe now is the time for Scioscia to commit to him at third; in fact, Trumbo has played two games at third since the opening series without an error.
His hitting should have been enough to carry the Angels to a win against the Rays, but Walden, who was pitching for the first time in four days and had had only one previous save opportunity, couldn't preserve a 3-2 lead.
Pujols remains without a home run, but he did end his career-high hitless streak at 21 at-bats with a ground single to center in the sixth. Pujols, however, is aggressive to a fault, and he was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a double, not the first time that's happened this season.
The Angels strung together three consecutive two-out hits after Pujols, including Trumbo's double and Well's run-scoring infield hit, but they could have used another run as insurance — if only Pujols had remained at first.
The Angels reportedly held a closed-door meeting before the game, presumably to air any concerns the players might have about their collective focus, but those kinds of things usually have little impact on the big picture.
It comes down to pitching well, which Williams did, and hitting in key situations. Williams worked seven innings and gave up two runs, exiting with a 3-2 lead, and the Angels seemed to have enough offense to hold their lead.
But little has gone right this season. They had Trumbo, but he wasn't enough.
"I like the energy," Scioscia told reporters afterward. "We did a lot of good things on the field, but unfortunately, it got away from us at the end."
Too many games have gotten away. At some point, they won't be able to say the season is still young.
