ANAHEIM, Calif. _ For the fifth time in five days, the Angels left Angel Stadium victorious. They beat the Milwaukee Brewers 11-8 on Tuesday night.
But there is a chance they lost star center fielder Mike Trout for at least a few days. He left the game because of a right groin strain, the team announced, and is considered day to day.
Trout, a two-time most valuable player, appeared to hurt himself when he slid feet first into second base on a force-out that ended the second inning. He stood and grabbed at his right leg.
Trout remained in the game for the third inning but was replaced by Peter Bourjos in the outfield before the start of the fourth.
Trout, who leads the Angels in average (.406), home runs (five) and RBIs (12), had two hits in two at-bats against Brewers starter Freddy Peralta. He singled on a ground ball to right in the first inning, snapping a hitless streak at five plate appearances. He ran at a speed of 30.3 feet per second, according to MLB's Statcast system, to beat out a ground ball to second for an infield single in the second inning.
Trout on Monday was named the American League player of the week after batting .438 with five runs scored, seven hits, five homers, nine RBI and eight walks across six games. He hit a homer in each of the first four games of the Angels' homestand, including two in Friday's win over Texas.
Trout's 2.631 on-base-plus-slugging percentage against the Rangers was the third-highest OPS in a four-game series behind Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle.
Trout's early exit Tuesday overshadowed a back-and-forth affair that began with a six-run first inning by the Angels.
Albert Pujols ripped a two-out single to right that scored Trout from second and allowed Justin Bour to advance to second. Brian Goodwin, claimed off waivers March 27 to fill the void created by Justin Upton's toe injury, piled on. His 10th hit in an Angels uniform traveled at a below-average speed of 75.4 mph, just slow enough to allow Bour to score and Pujols to lumber from first to third on the single.
Jonathan Lucroy extended the barrage of hits, beating out an infield single to drive in a run. Then Tommy La Stella, who had hit 11 home runs since making his major league debut in 2014, squared up a letter-high, 91-mph fastball and launched it 403 feet to right for a 6-0 lead.
The home run was the longest of La Stella's career for about an hour. He blasted a solo shot 414 feet to dead center to lead off the fourth inning, marking his second career game with multiple home runs. It gave the Angels a 7-5 lead and chased Peralta, who had given up four earned runs in 11 innings entering Tuesday.
The offensive outpouring should have been enough for Angels starter Matt Harvey. Five days after surrendering five runs to the Texas Rangers in a loss here, Harvey was gifted a 6-0 lead after one inning.
But Harvey faltered. After he recorded two quick outs to start the second inning, Yasmani Grandal singled to right. Four consecutive hits followed, shrinking Harvey's lead to 6-3.
Grandal homered off him in the fourth inning, and by the time Harvey was replaced by reliever Luke Bard with one out in the fifth, he had given up five runs.
Mike Moustakas and Grandal hit back-to-back home runs off Bard, who inherited one runner from Harvey and gave up two runs of his own.
The blasts gave the Brewers an 8-7 lead, but the Angels clawed back ahead. Lucroy drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs in the seventh to give the Angels a 9-8 advantage.
As they improved to 6-6, the Angels saw all but two spots in the lineup get hits _ Kole Calhoun, who drew a leadoff walk and scored in the eighth, and Zack Cozart, who went 0 for 4 and is now mired in a 1-for-30 slump to start the season.
