Three times Mike Trout strode to the plate against Houston pitcher Jose Urquidy on July 2, and three times he returned to the dugout in frustration, the Angels star striking out on three pitches in each at-bat, the equivalent of an immaculate inning by the Astros right-hander against one of baseball's best hitters.
There was no trickery involved in the whiffs. Urquidy's first pitch to Trout that day at Minute Maid Park was a curveball. His next eight pitches were 93-95 mph fastballs, seven of them in the upper third of the strike zone.
High heat. This was Trout's kryptonite in 2014, when he won his first of three American League most valuable player awards despite a career-high 184 strikeouts, and it is a glaring weakness again in 2022, even as Trout compiles another All-Star season after sitting out most of 2021 because of a calf strain.
