Angels News: Triple-A Manager Reveals Reason Behind David Fletcher's Past Struggles
When the Los Angeles Angels announced that they were sending David Fletcher back down to the minor leagues, it caught the fanbase by surprise. He has now been killing it in his time with the Salt Lake Bees as he's been able to hit .383 with an OPS of .909 in his 180 at-bats for the squad.
Zach Neto recently went down with an oblique injury and then Gio Urshela was ruled out for the rest of the season with a pelvic fracture. Throw in Anthony Rendon's own wrist injury and it looked all but certain that the Halos' front office would give Fletcher a call seeing how he's been performing.
However, this wasn't the case as they instead parted ways with a number of their top pitching prospects and welcomed some veteran infielders to the roster in Eduardo Escobar and Mike Moustakas. Fletcher did not want to speak too much on the Angels not looking his way but he made it clear that they haven't communicated much with him. At the last minute, LA then decided that they were going to call him up but Fletcher made some interesting comments about the matters before.
“I don’t know the reasoning,” said Fletcher. “Whether it’s roster stuff or contract. I really don’t know. If I’m here, I’m going to have a good time playing here,” Fletcher said. “I’m going to keep doing well. If they call me up or trade me or whatever they do, I’m going to go there and do the same thing.”
(Via The Athletic)
Fletcher didn't do his best when he was on the big league roster earlier this year and in the past but he certainly has made positive strides now. With LA's tendency to rely on their guys in the minors, it's surprising he wasn't brought up.
However, Triple-A manager Keith Johnson reveals that Fletcher was not at his best when he was the Halos and has gotten healthy since then.
“I think he wasn’t healthy,”said Johnson. “There were things he was asking his body to do, and his body wasn’t physically able to do it. For a while now, we’re seeing the version of Fletch that I’m used to seeing.”
(Via The Athletic)
It's great to see him with the big league squad now!
