In another frustrating update from a common trend for the past few seasons of his career, as Angels superstar Mike Trout still isn’t back to baseball activity after a wrist injury that’s hampered him since July.

Breaking the hamate bone in his right hand against the Padres, aside from one game off the IL, Trout is back on the shelf and hasn’t even begun an important benchmark to the process of returning yet, as he’s yet to start swinging a bat.

Poised to return to the postseason when he was still healthy, a series that saw Trout and Anthony Rendon both go down with injuries quickly made the burden entirely on Shohei Ohtani’s shoulders to carry the Angels back to the playoffs in 2023.

When the team started to turn their season around even without their two biggest contracts on the roster, management decided to buy at the deadline to support Ohtani’s conquests for October baseball.

Such a pursuit has all but failed by this point in September as Ohtani’s body couldn’t endure the burden of carrying both the lackluster starting rotation and the paltry hitting core the Halos assembled around him without his teammates backing him in the lineup.

Trout’s absence has loomed large in each of the past three Halos seasons as the veteran now can definitely be called injury prone due to various ailments preventing him from seeing the field for all 162 games.

Not only has Trout’s health come into question in recent seasons, but given the state of the roster without many high level prospects or much talent at the major league level, the best player the Angels have ever had could request out of Anaheim very soon.

With his Japanese superstar teammate having one foot out the door presumably this winter, Trout may follow suit and this could be it for one of the best the game has ever seen as an Angel.