Angels Outfielder Slowly Digging Out of Early-Season Hole

Maren Angus-Coombs | Jul 11, 2024

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Mickey Moniak homered in the second inning of the Los Angeles Angels' 7-2 win over the Texas Rangers on Wednesday. He added a single later in the game and finished 2-for-4 with three RBIs and a run scored.

The center fielder is trying to dig out of the hole he dug for himself in the first two months of the season. His two hits upped his batting average to .198. However, he has improved markedly since mid-June — a .256 average and .772 OPS over his last 98 plate appearances.

Mickey Moniak follows Zach Neto’s single that brings Drury home with a 3-run homer!

4-0 Angels!#RepTheHalo #GoHalos #Angels #LTBU pic.twitter.com/Bjp5d8Yj1W

— Locked On Angels (@LockedOnAngels) July 11, 2024

“It’s a long process, a long season,” Moniak told reporters after Wednesday's game, via the Orange County Register. “Things haven’t gone the way I wanted to up to this point, but it’s in the past. There’s nothing I can do about it. The only thing I can do is kind of control what I can control, focus on my work, focus on getting better every day and kind of getting back to the baseball player I know it can be. I think today, obviously, you see the results out on the field and It’s always good to help the team win. But most of the work comes you know, before 6:38.”

Angels manager Ron Washington hopes Moniak can build on Wednesday's performance and try to find some consistency in his offensive game.

“I think once he finds consistency, the things that people believe that he can do, and the things that he believes he can do they’re going to start showing up more frequently,” Washington said. “Just gotta be consistent. Have a night like he had tonight, you gotta be able to come back tomorrow and build on that. You can’t come back and fight and nothing happens then four or five more days down the road and all of a sudden you find something. When you find it, you gotta lock it in.”