This Angels season has had its fair share of injury misery.
In the middle of that misery were the injuries to Anthony Rendon (wrist) and Archie Bradley (elbow) that were bizarre in nature and/or how they happened.
The team's athletic trainer, Mike Frostad, has expressed optimism over the return of at least Bradley, but both have made progress in their rehab.
Rendon partially dislocated a tendon in his right wrist, a discomfort he felt during his third at-bat of a game May 8. He had surgery to repair the issue at the end of June, which had an estimated recovery time of four to six months.
Recently, he was cleared to add throwing across the field and hitting in the batting cages to his routine.
"He's doing a lot of things on the field that we weren't sure he was gonna get to at this point," interim manager Phil Nevin said of Rendon.
Rendon is expected to return for spring training in 2023.
Bradley fractured his elbow falling over the dugout railing while trying to get to the Angels brawl with the Seattle Mariners on June 26.
The team was unsure about his timeline to recover and whether he would return to pitch this season. His recovery required a minimum of four weeks of no throwing.
More than two months since getting injured, Bradley is scheduled to throw off a mound in a bullpen session Wednesday.
He will be evaluated again to see how he feels after that session. There is still no set timeline for his return.
Trout hits his 31st home run
Nevin knows best the limited impact a solo home run can have in a game. After all, he did watch as his Angels hit seven of them on the way to an August loss to the Oakland Athletics.
On Tuesday against the Detroit Tigers, solo home runs gave the Angels a promising lead they were able to carry through most of the game. When the Tigers tied the score in the eighth inning, however, Nevin's words rang true again: Solo home runs don't win ballgames. The Angels won 5-4 in 10 innings.
Usually reliable reliever José Quijada started off strong in the eighth, striking out his first batter, Eric Haase, on his signature four-seam fastball. But it got dicey after he hit his second batter, Willi Castro, then gave up a double to Victor Reyes.
Quijada was pulled for Jimmy Herget with the Angels still needing two outs. Herget got his first batter, Javi Baez, to ground out, but that play still allowed Castro to score and tie the game at 3-3. The run was earned for Quijada.
In the 10th, another Tigers run scored on an RBI hit by Baez. Ryan Tepera was the reliever on the mound at the time, but the run was unearned for him as the run that scored was the player who started the inning on second.
Mike Trout picked up where he left off in Monday's game against the Tigers in his first at-bat Tuesday.
In the bottom of the first inning, with no one on and one out, Trout launched the first pitch delivered to him by Tigers starter Eduardo Rodriguez and parked it by the hedges behind the center-field wall.
It was his 31st home run of the season and his third straight game in which he's hit a home run. The shot also further proved just how good Trout said he's been feeling since returning from a back injury on Aug. 19.
Tuesday's home run party also included the third time the Angels have hit them back to back. Mike Ford and Jo Adell hit solo home runs in the second.
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