Angels News: Mike Trout Struggling to Fix Swing Issues

Mike Trout is having a down year by his standards, and he's trying to do what he can to raise his play at the plate.

For the average baseball player, hitting your way to a .266/.364/.491 slash line with 14 home runs and 35 RBI would be more than respectable, especially putting those numbers up by early June.

But Mike Trout is not your average baseball player.

Getting enshrined in Cooperstown is surely in his future, and he's put an extraordinary amount of work into becoming one of the best players in the sport's long history.

For the guy who worked grew up in Millville, New Jersey and now plies his trade 3,000 miles away at Angel Stadium, that line just isn't good enough.

And Mike Trout's doing what he can to fix his swing and live up to the gaudy expectations that he's established for himself.

As he told Sam Blum of The Athletic, its been difficult for him to translate his work in the cage into results on the diamond.

 “I think the biggest thing right now is that my front side is flying open,” Trout said on Tuesday. “I’m not hitting off of anything. Just up there swinging all upper body. It’s a process. For me, I can go in the cage … And then in the game, it’s just a different thought process. I couldn’t tell you why.”

He knows what to do to fix things, but its putting that process into practice that's been the hard part for him.

“When your front side is flying open, your backside drops,” Trout said. “That’s why I’m under a lot of balls, and hitting balls to right field. When I get a strong load, keep the front side closed, I’m the old Mike.” (via The Athletic's Sam Blum)

It's only a matter of time before he puts it all back together, and those balls that he's swinging away at in the solitude of the batting cage, turn into hits in games and things start to come through for Trout by way of tangible results.

Sure, there are things that need fixing, namely the higher than usual strikeout rate of 27.5 percent.

But this is Mike Trout we're talking about here. Again, not your average baseball player.

And if he's doing this in a "down year," he'll be playing up to his usual greatness when he inevitably puts it all together.

The usual greatness that'll put him in the Hall when it's all said and done.