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Welcome to the club, kid. Mike Trout hammered his way into the record books on Friday night, notching his 100th and 101st career home runs during the Angels’ 6-3 win over the Astros. He established his first milestone early on, depositing a two-run shot off of Houston starter Roberto Hernandez in the sixth inning, followed two innings later by a three-run, game-tying homer against reliever Chad Qualls.
At 23 years and 251 days old, Trout is currently the youngest player to achieve over 100 home runs and 100 stolen bases, beating out Alex Rodriguez (who eclipsed both records at the age of 23 years and 309 days) by nearly two months. The speedy outfielder has 104 steals to his name after nabbing his 100th base toward the end of the 2014 season.
What makes Trout’s accomplishments even more impressive is the way he’s pulled them off. In a postgame interview with MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez, Trout explained his unorthodox approach to at-bats: “When I get aggressive early in the count, it gets me ready for later pitches in the at-bat, as opposed to just letting one go by. […] If I get my pitch, I’m going to try to swing at it.” It’s a risky strategy for the reigning American League MVP, who batted .216 on a two-strike count in 2014 and racked up 184 strikeouts. Through his first nine games of 2015, Trout bumped that average up to .600, going 4-for-10 in two-strike situations. Yes, these are the smallest of sample sizes, and yes, they’re likely to be taken down a few pegs over the course of the season. But this far into 2015, they’re yielding some significant returns for baseball’s hottest player.
- Speaking of A-Rod’s home run record, the 39-year-old now sits just two dingers away from tying Willie Mays’ 660 mark and earning his first $6 million milestone bonus from the Yankees. Rodriguez unleashed two massive home runs during the Yankees-Rays showdown on Friday, the longer of the two measuring a whopping 471 feet.
- Cubs’ top prospect Kris Bryant flunked his major league debut with three strikeouts, going 0-for-4 in his first game with a pair of impressive defensive plays against the Padres. Despite his underwhelming performance, the young infielder elicited rousing cheers from the crowd — just a sample of what he’ll get when he finally produces his first big league hit.
- Josh Hamilton is making slow progress with his shoulder rehab, but Angels’ skipper Mike Scioscia is more concerned with the outfielder’s treatment plan for non-baseball issues.
- Thanks to new pace-of-play parameters, the average minor league game is now nine or ten minutes shorter than usual. Whether or not this trend will hold up throughout the 2015 season remains to be seen, but it’s a promising start.
- Marlins’ backstop Jarrod Saltalamacchia has been benched for three straight games in favor of rookie catcher J.T. Realmuto — and he’s not happy about it. While Saltalamacchia later vowed not to let his emotional response become a distraction for the team, you could call his outburst a little… salty.
- Orioles’ starter Ubaldo Jimenez took a no-hitter into the fourth inning when he was wrongfully ejected from Friday’s game against the Red Sox.
- Mets’ manager Terry Collins wants to expand major league rosters to 28 or 30 players, allowing teams to swap out their unused starting pitchers for added depth on the field. Although resized rosters could solve quite a few extra-inning headaches, MLB’s head honchos are not expected to adopt major changes anytime soon.
