Angels’ Anthony Rendon to have season-ending wrist surgery, adding to LA’s rough month

Los Angeles Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon will miss the remainder of the 2022 season after the organization announced that Rendon will undergo season-ending surgery on his right wrist next week. 

Rendon, who signed a seven-year, $245 million contract with the Angels in 2020, suffered the injury in early May, and was on the injured list from May 17 to June 10. 

“We knew [surgery] was always an option, but we were trying to figure out how to get through each day, but it got to the point where it didn’t get better,” Rendon said Friday, according to MLB.com. “Yesterday was the last straw. I tried to go through a new routine to try to see if I could play. And we tried to do some stuff during the game, but it just wouldn’t happen.”

Angels head athletic trainer Mike Frostad said that the recovery time for Rendon’s surgery is four-to-six months, and that the third baseman should be ready for next season’s offseason. 

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“More often than not, this injury ends up in surgery and we were expecting this to be the outcome,” Frostad said, via ESPN. “We were just trying to get through to the end of the year, and he was trying to get through the end of the year, and he just wasn’t able to get there.”

“We’re anticipating that it’s a four-to-six-month recovery,” Frostad continued. “So by doing it now, he should have a fairly normal offseason.”

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Rendon’s first three seasons in Los Angeles have been disappointing, playing in only 58 games in 2021 due to a hip injury. Rendon will have played in just 103 of a possible 324 games in the past two years at the end of the 2022 regular season. 

“We’ve got a few different options,” interim manager Phil Nevin said. “We have certainly have guys who can go over there and play well defensively. But when you take Anthony Rendon out of the lineup, the way he works pitchers and takes at-bats, just that name in the lineup, it’s different. I’m not going to lie to you. But with where he’s at, he just couldn’t go, so we’ll piece it together every day.”

It’s a major blow to an Angels team which has struggled mightily since its hot start to the season. 

On June 7, the Angels fired manager Joe Maddon after the team had lost 12 straight games following a 24-13 start to the year. The Angels have gone 3-7 since making a change at the managerial level, and sit 11 games back of the Houston Astros in the AL West.