ANAHEIM, Calif._Were he so inclined, Mike Trout could have spent the past few days reading various national stories about how he ...
Is improving as a baseball player.
Might already be a Hall of Famer.
Could be having the greatest season ever.
In all likelihood, however, he's more focused on the fact that in his past 19 at-bats he has zero hits.
Why do these numbers matter? Well, this is the longest such streak of his otherwise stellar career, while also serving as a perfect glimpse at a flailing lineup, the Angels falling Thursday to Tampa Bay, 7-1.
"My timing's just off a little bit," Trout said. "Obviously, the results aren't there."
The only breakthrough for the Angels came in garbage time, the bottom of the ninth, when Shohei Ohtani homered to make one memory in a game 99-percent forgettable.
Before that 411-foot shot, the Angels had been shut out for parts of three days and 21 innings, their offense unable to do anything, in particular, against Houston's Justin Verlander or the Rays' Chris Archer.
Verlander has been especially difficult of late on the Angels, and Archer is 6-1 all-time against them. Still, he came into this game dragging a 5.64 ERA and with only one win in his previous six starts.
Didn't matter. The Angels, in their present state, are missing on all cylinders.
"Right now, there are a few more guys searching than are really feeling good in the box," Mike Scioscia said. "These guys will get it together."
The Angels manager has tried scrambling his lineup, going with Trout and Ohtani at the top for two games this week.
The change having yielded little, Scioscia returned to a more tradition batting order against the Rays. And the results remained the same.
Things turned ugliest in the sixth, when Justin Upton was struck in the left hand by an Archer fastball clocked at 94.8 mph.
Upton squatted in pain immediately and was quickly taken back to the clubhouse. Initial X-rays showed no fracture, and the Angels announced that Upton is considered day-to-day.
Having homered in six of his previous 11 games before Thursday, Upton was called "probably one of the hottest hitters in our league" early this week by Scioscia.
Losing him for any extended time would put added strain on a lineup already searching for the type of production that helped the Angels open the season with a franchise-best 13 victories in 16 games.
Since then, they're12-16 and have looked nothing like the obvious playoff contenders they resembled through much of April.
This latest offensively challenged defeat wasted another strong start by Tyler Skaggs, who permitted just a single run in six innings to lower his ERA to 2.88.
Angels now have had a franchise-record 17 consecutive games in which their starter has surrendered three or fewer runs. And, during that stretch, they're only 9-8.
The mood Thursday wasn't helped at all by the fact that a former Angel returned to produce more offense than all the current Angels did combined.
C.J. Cron, who was traded to Tampa Bay during spring training, homered off Skaggs in the sixth for the first run of the game.
It was Cron's 11th of the season, a number that right now would be tied for second on the Angels.
"He's one of the favorites over here in the clubhouse," Scioscia said, and, yes, this was uttered before the game. "He's getting an opportunity and making the most of it. We're all happy for him. We just hope he doesn't hurt us this series."
Too late.
